Updates.... DAILY?!?

[r_burcham]

I have been using Ubuntu on my laptop for about 3 months now. I just LOVE the programs and more love the fact that there is a good GUI desktop that is NOT windows based. For the last few weeks though every time I log in I get the "update" manager pop up. So like a good user I allow it to update and then its fine for the rest of the day. Is this a common for this OS to need this many updates?

[N-t-F]

The point is these are not OS updates, most of the time. All applications use the same system to get their patches, so it is a bit as if under Windows you had the update manager firing for Acrobat reader, Java, Winamp and all other installed applications. You would see it quite often too. ;)

That said, you are not forced to apply updates on a daily basis, but it's not bad to do so since some updates are important, security-wise.

[pastalavista]

In System--> Administration--> Software Sources under the 'Updates' tab you can set how often it checks for updates. Daily is the default.

[Goolie]

i've only used ubuntu for a week or so. But I think it's a little different when it updates. On Windows, you'd update only Windows itself. On Ubuntu, every software package you have installed gets updated. So when I started my windows PC, I'd have to update firefox, opera, chrome, flash, crap cleaner, and other programs on my own. However, on my Ubuntu system I see updates for various programs, my banshee music player, my Wine software, etc. So I don't have to update individual programs. It's an all-in-one for ease. And I've gotten some daily, I think if you look at the actual updates you'll see they're for many different programs.

[winter321]

Sure.
It is an open-source community and people are constantly building and updating software, changing it and making it better. Updating daily gets YOU the latest stuff and fixes for your computer. However if you want to make it less often (like every 2 days or every 2 weeks) you can adjust how often it will check for updates. The settings are at SYSTEM>>ADMINISTRATION>>SOFTWARE SOUCES and then on the Updates tab.

[nothingspecial]

Or you can hit Alt F2 and type


gconf-editor

go apps > update notifier and then uncheck (remove the tick) the auto launch box

The arrow will still appear in your panel to let you know you have updates but the stupid thing won`t keep appearing every 5 minutes, like it didn`t in the good ol` days.