Tag: update

Update Python Packages (PIP)

We’ve had a run of Python packages recently and you can tell that I’m a fan because today we will discuss how to update Python packages that were installed via PIP. This should be a pretty easy article to follow along with.

Before diving into the world of installing Python packages from a centralized repository (via PIP), you should probably be familiar with the entire process. So, read these two articles before proceeding:

Install Python’s PIP Part One

And then follow up with this article:

Install Python’s PIP Part Two

It’s important to upgrade the packages you’ve installed with PIP. All software requires updates. Bugs are fixed with newer software but, more importantly, security issues are addressed with updates. This doesn’t just apply to Python. It applies to your whole computer. Software gets updated and you need to apply those updates.

So, today we’re going to do some maintenance and we’re going to update Python packages. Rather than waste time with a long intro, let’s get started!

Update Python Packages:

Just so you know, Python packages are installed in the terminal. So, it stands to reason that updates are also done in the terminal. To follow along in this article, you will need an open terminal. So, if you want to update Python packages you should start by opening a terminal. You can usually just CTRL + ALT + T to open your default terminal emulator.

With your terminal open, let’s first ensure PIP is installed with this command:

Next, make sure PIP is updated to the newest version:

With PIP upgraded to the most current version, you can check to see which Python packages you have previously installed. That’s done like this:

Now, you can see which packages can be updated to newer packages:

That will give you an output similar to this:

Now, you can update the packages, like so:

You can also do multiple packages at the same time:

By doing this, you can update your Python packages, at least those installed via PIP. That is indeed pretty easy.

However, I have a command that I certainly didn’t come up with. This is a command I found in my notes and I do not see a reference URL – or I’d cite the source. Doing some searching, I saw that this command is referenced at multiple sites. So, finding the source is problematic for me.

If you want to upgrade all the Python packages at once, try this command:

I tested this and it appears to work well enough. PIP does love to throw errors in the terminal but generally works okay. That command should update all the packages you’ve installed with PIP – including any Python dependencies that were installed at the same time.

See? It’s pretty easy to update Python packages…

Closure:

Well, now you know how to update Python packages. I figured that this was an important article to write. If you’re going to use PIP to install Python packages, you might as well know how to keep yourself secure and how to keep yourself updated. That seemed reasonable.

However, my Python skills aren’t that great. I can do a Hello World program and that’s about it. I haven’t even done that in a while. So, don’t go asking me detailed Python questions! I probably won’t have an answer. My use is pretty limited to things I can trivially install with PIP.

Also, you may not want to ask me questions. While I’ll be polite, my time is constrained these days. I’m just as likely to refer you to a forum or two. You can ask questions. If they’re good, I’ll maybe answer them in an article. I’m just pointing out that you shouldn’t expect too much from me.

“If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.”

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Upgrade Linux Mint In The Termanal

If you have chosen Linux Mint as your distro then you have a handy GUI way to upgrade, but today we’ll upgrade Linux Mint in the terminal. This won’t be entirely pointless, as we’ll be doing things the GUI method of upgrading doesn’t do. By the end of this article, you should be comfortable upgrading your system in the terminal.

Additionally, this is going to work for other related distros. This article will apply to you if you use Debian, Ubuntu, an official Ubuntu flavor, and many other distros. More specifically, if you have access to apt, this will apply to your computer.

There are a few confusing terms here. I’ll do what I can to explain.

We often use ‘update’ and ‘upgrade’ interchangeably. I do that myself. In the sense of this article, an update means you’re refreshing the software available to you and then you’d upgrade to the newest versions of that software. So, in the sense of the commands used, they’re not interchangeable.

We’ll be using apt for this article. APT is short for Advanced Package Manager. This is the most common method of managing packages in the terminal, at least for those distributions that use apt. If you check the man page, you’ll see:

apt – command-line interface

And that’s not too descriptive. If we read on, we’ll see:

apt provides a high-level commandline interface for the package
management system.

That’s a bit more promising, as updating and upgrading is indeed managing packages. So, that’s what we’ll be using and you won’t need to install anything if you’re using Linux Mint.

Upgrade Linux Mint In The Terminal:

As you can see, I mentioned that this is to be done in the terminal. That means you need an open terminal. Just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal now open, let’s update the database to see what new software is available for your system. That’s an easy command:

The output will tell you to do so, but you can check the available upgrades with the following command:

You could update them manually, one by one, but you can just use this command:

That will install all of your available updates without asking you for permission to proceed. If the updates do require manual input, it will stop to ask you for your input.

Now, there’s another tool. We can clean up after ourselves, removing software that doesn’t need to be installed anymore. This happens and happens with some regularity. You can run the following command:

If you’d like, you can combine all these commands into a single command:

You can alias that, or leave it in your Bash history, and run that regularly to keep your system updated with the latest (and most secure, generally speaking) software.

Closure:

Yup… It was still a weekend when I wrote this. I also have guests that will be here for a while. So, it’s a fairly short article – but it’s a useful article for those who are running Linux Mint. After all, it’s not all that challenging to upgrade Linux Mint from the terminal and that’s something all Linux Mint users may wish to learn. If you’re in that group, this article is for you…

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Update Flatpaks From The Terminal

Today’s article is just going to be nice and quick. It is just going to be about how you can update flatpaks from the terminal. This might be something you’re interested in learning. So, if you want to know how to update flatpaks from the terminal, this is the article for you!

Trust me, this shouldn’t take too long. That’s good because I’m not sure how long I have! I’m having some desktop computer issues. I have laptops, yes plural, available, but I hate typing on them. I could just hook up an external monitor and keyboard, but that’s a lot like work. If I was interested in doing work, I’d investigate why my desktop PCs keep dying.

What Is A Flatpak:

A flatpak is an application package format. To enable flatpaks, you’ll have to install some software first. That seems like a good article that hasn’t been written yet.

Anyhow, a flatpak comes with all the dependencies it needs to run. It is also run in a sandbox, meaning it is more secure as it runs independently of the operating system and other applications. As they run independently, they’re able to be installed (in theory) on any distro. You don’t need to make a flatpak for each distro’s package manager, you can just make the one flatpak and it should work everywhere.

If you have something like the Gnome Software Manager and you’ve installed the initial flatpak software (software that enables you to use these packages in the first place) then you’ll see that it integrates flatpaks into the system. In that case, flatpaks will update with the rest of the system and you don’t need to worry about updating flatpaks in the terminal.

On the other hand, this may not be true for you and you may not realize that you can update flatpaks from the terminal. Which means this is for you…

Update Flatpaks From The Terminal:

Of course, this means you need an open terminal. Just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open. You may need to open the terminal from your application menu, but the above key bindings are fairly universal.

The command is really simple if you want to update flatpaks from the terminal. To do so, you simply run this command:

Notice that you do not need sudo or any elevated permissions. Many folks list this command as a sudo prefaced command and that’s not necessary. The flatpaks installed are installed in a way that the files belong to the user. As such, there’s no need to use elevated permissions.

While you’re there, there’s a lot that one might not know about the flatpak application. I highly suggest you check out the man page to learn more – as there’s quite a bit that you can do with the application.

Yeah, that should show you all the options you have. There are far too many options to cover in this short article about updating flatpaks from the terminal.

Closure:

So, yeah… I told you that this would be a nice and short article. There’s a way to update flatpaks from the terminal and this is how you do it. You might as well know how to do so. It’s not complicated and might come in handy someday, especially if you’re expected to update them manually.

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How To: Update A Single Package In Ubuntu

Today’s article should be short because it’s late in the evening and I have decided to write about how to update a single package in Ubuntu. It’s an easy topic to write about, as there are really just a couple of choices. It shouldn’t be complicated and, for the most part.

First, let me state this…

I firmly believe that you should keep everything updated and updated the minute the update is available.

HOWEVER…

That assumes a perfect world. We do not live in a perfect world. We live in the real world. Because of this, people delay updates for various reasons. The biggest delay I can think of at this hour of the night is the delays added in the business world.

Rather than push an update to production, they’ll run it through testing first. It can take quite a while before an update makes it into production.

The reality is that many of our updates are security updates. As a byproduct of their update policy, at any given time they’re running insecure software. I understand why they’d do this. They don’t want things to break. They certainly don’t want public-facing things to break.

Again, I can understand why regular people follow a similar process. They’ll wait and watch to see if the updates cause problems for other people. But, that’s like waiting for the first person to jump in the river to see if the water is cold.

In all my years of using Linux, I’ve had updates bork the system fewer times than I have fingers on one hand. I’ve had updates bork the system so completely that it hoses everything exactly zero times. As in, not once was I screwed over by an update that really did any damage.

But…

Again, I can understand those who would rather be cautious.

This article is for you. It’s for you people who want to update a single package in Ubuntu. It’s for those people who do what they must in order to maintain a stable system.

This isn’t just applicable to Ubuntu. I tend to use Lubuntu and, as such, am a fan. So, I used Ubuntu in the headline. This applies equally to Debian, Mint, and other Ubuntu derivatives. It should even work in derivatives of derivatives. It’s pretty basic stuff.

Update A Single Package In Ubuntu:

So, you might be able to do this with a GUI. I don’t actually know and I didn’t test to see if there was a way to do so graphically. Check your software manager while the rest of us open a terminal. You can (more often than not) open your default terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T.

With your terminal now open, you need an application to update. If you’re a good netizen, you hopefully don’t have many upgrades available. You can check and see by running this command:

You can then get a list of applications that can be updated, assuming there’s an application that can be updated, with the following command:

The next step is to use one of the following two commands to update a single package in Ubuntu (neither of which are all that difficult):

Yes, that looks like it’s going to install a new application, but you substitute the <package_name> with the package name that you want to update in Ubuntu. The ‘install’ will happily upgrade to the next passage.

The next one is bit more jargony. Jargon-y? Maybe? It’s more complicated looking (but easy enough to memorize). So, if you want to update a single package in Ubuntu, this too should also do the trick:

Once again, you replace the obvious with the obvious. Just doing so would help you sort out how to update a single package in Ubuntu. Either of these commands should work, so you do have a choice.

Closure:

As I said, it’s not going to be all that difficult to update a single package in Ubuntu. You have a choice in commands. While I think it’s best to avoid all update delays, I do understand why you might want to be more cautious.

I go full blast at updates, but I’ve lately been a bit slow about major upgrades. In my case it’s a bandwidth issue. I had one box running like Linux Mint 20 or something like that…

Wait, it still says 21 is the version – but I’m quite literally nearing the end of the upgrade process. That may have already changed. I was so far behind that I needed more than 4 GB worth of downloads. When I’m done we’ll have an OS that’s missing almost all the stuff I installed on top of it! 

It can sure be a pain in the butt. Alas, as least I’m not trying to update a single package in Ubuntu!

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Let’s Update Ubuntu In The Terminal

Today’s article will be a nice basic article, where we discuss how to update Ubuntu in the terminal. It seems like a fine article to write and one that not everyone will be versed in. There are lots of folks who don’t use the terminal for much of anything. Then, there are people like me who use the terminal for all sorts of stuff.

If you know how to update Ubuntu in the terminal, this really won’t be a very interesting article. We’ll just be covering the basics and I’ll explain how I do it. You’ll see that I tend to throw caution to the wind and just blindly hope for the best. This strategy is fine for me, ’cause I can fix pretty much anything. (I can fix pretty much anything because I’ve broken pretty much everything.)

Of course, this article applies to Debian. This article applies to Linux Mint. This article should apply to anything that uses apt as the package manager. So, if your distro is related to Debian then this will probably work just fine for you.

Well, there’s no reason to make the intro any longer… I think I’ve covered all that you need to know to get started.

Update Ubuntu In The Terminal:

As you can guess, we need an open terminal if we’re going to update Ubuntu in the terminal. That only stands to reason… Press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal now open, let’s update the list of software that’s available. Let’s see what software can be updated. To do that, you just run:

That will tell you the software that’s available to update. You can see what those updates are with the following command:

You can then upgrade those applications one by one if you want to. Some cautious people do this. Some businesses do this – and do this to a staging environment to test – ’cause they need to keep things running. If you want to upgrade just a single package, try this:

Now, most folks are probably going to want to upgrade all the software that has new versions. They get it easy, they just type:

This will give you the chance to see everything that’s going to be upgraded and the chance to decline or agree. Me? I automatically agree. You might want to be more cautious, but I like running the command closer to this:

That automatically says yes that I’d like to upgrade all the things. After all, even if stuff were to break, I’d have had to have upgraded to find it anyhow. 

I go a step further and just tie the two commands together. The command I run would look closer to this:

That will find all the available upgrades and install them automatically, that is without any further input from me. I’ve done this for years and it hasn’t been a problem or any more of a problem any other method would cause me. So, in short, that works for me.

Closure:

I don’t know that you wanted to learn how to update Ubuntu in the terminal, but that’s today’s lesson. It’s not very complicated. I could keep going, as my actually command also includes the ‘clean’ option. I use an alias to tie it all together, rather than typing it out each time. There are also similar commands you can use for other distros with different package managers.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

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