Arch-Update

Table of contents

• Description
• Installation
• Usage
• Documentation
• Tips and tricks
• Contributing
• License

Description

An update notifier & applier for Arch Linux that assists you with important pre / post update tasks.
Includes a dynamic & clickeable systray applet for an easy integration with any Desktop Environment / Window Manager.

Arch-Update is designed to follow usual system maintenance steps, as described in the Arch Wiki.

Features:

• Automatic check and listing of available updates.
• Check for recent Arch Linux news (and offers to display them if there are).
• Check for orphan packages (and offers to remove them if there are).
• Check for old & uninstalled packages in cache (and offers to remove them if there are).
• Check for pacnew & pacsave files (and offers to process them if there are).
• Check for pending kernel update requiring a reboot (and offers to do so if there's one).
• Check for services requiring a post upgrade restart (and offers to do so if there are).
• Support for sudo, doas & run0.

Optional support for:

• AUR packages (via paru, yay or pikaur).
• Flatpak packages (via flatpak).
• Desktop notifications (via libnotify).

Installation

AUR

Install the arch-update AUR package (also check the list of optional dependencies for anything you may want or need).

From Source

Install required dependencies:

sudo pacman -S --needed pacman-contrib archlinux-contrib curl fakeroot htmlq diffutils hicolor-icon-theme python python-pyqt6 qt6-svg glib2

Additional optional dependencies you might want or need:

• paru: AUR Packages support
• yay: AUR Packages support
• pikaur: AUR Packages support
• flatpak: Flatpak Packages support
• libnotify: Desktop notifications support on new available updates (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_notifications)
• vim: Default merge program for pacdiff
• qt6-wayland: Systray applet support on Wayland

Install required build dependencies:

sudo pacman -S --asdeps make scdoc bats

Download the archive of the latest stable release and extract it (alternatively, you can clone this repository with git).

To install arch-update, go into the extracted / cloned directory and run the following commands:

sudo make
sudo make test
sudo make install

Once the installation is complete, you may optionally clean up the directory of files generated during installation by running the following command:

sudo make clean

To uninstall arch-update, go into the extracted / cloned directory and run the following command:

sudo make uninstall

Usage

The usage consist of starting the systray applet and enabling the systemd timer.

The systray applet

To start the systray applet, launch the "Arch-Update Systray Applet" application from your app menu.

To start it automatically at boot, you can either:

• Run the following command (preferred method for most Desktop Environments, uses XDG Autostart):

arch-update --tray --enable

• Enable the associated systemd service (in case your Desktop Environment doesn't support XDG Autostart):

systemctl --user enable --now arch-update-tray.service

• Add the following command to your "auto-start" apps / configuration file (in case you use a Window Manager or a Wayland Compositor):

arch-update --tray

If the systray applet doesn't start at boot regardless, please read this chapter.

The systray icon dynamically changes to indicate the current state of your system ('up to date' or 'updates available'). When clicked, it launches arch-update in a terminal window via the arch-update.desktop file.

If clicking the systray applet does nothing, please read this chapter.

The systemd timer

To perform automatic and periodic checks for available updates, enable the associated systemd timer:

systemctl --user enable --now arch-update.timer

By default, a check is performed at boot and then once every hour. The check cycle can be customized, see this chapter.

Screenshots

Once started, the systray applet appears in the systray area of your panel.
It is the icon at the right of the 'wifi' one in the screenshot below:

With the systemd timer enabled, checks for updates are automatically and periodically performed, but you can manually trigger one from the systray applet icon by right-clicking it and then clicking on the Check for updates menu entry:

If there are new available updates, the systray icon shows a red circle and a desktop notification indicating the number of available updates is sent:

You can then see the list of available updates in the systray icon's tooltip by hovering your mouse over it:

Alternatively, you can see the list of available updates in the dropdown menu entry by right-clicking the systray icon:

When the systray icon is left-clicked, it runs arch-update in a terminal window:

If at least one Arch Linux news has been published since the last run, Arch-Update will offer you to read the latest Arch Linux news directly from the terminal window.
The news published since the last run are tagged as [NEW]:

If no news has been published since the last run, Arch-Update directly asks for your confirmation to proceed with update.

From there, just let Arch-Update guide you through the various steps required for a complete and proper update of your system! 😄

Certain options can be enabled, disabled or modified via the arch-update.conf configuration file. See the arch-update.conf(5) man page for more details.

Documentation

arch-update

See arch-update --help and the arch-update(1) man page.

arch-update configuration file

See the arch-update.conf(5) man page.

Tips and tricks

The systray applet does not start at boot

Make sure you followed instructions of this chapter.

If the systray applet doesn't start regardless, this could be the result of a race condition.
To prevent that, you can add a small delay to the systray applet startup using the sleep command:

• If you used arch-update --tray --enable, modify the Exec= line in the arch-update-tray.desktop file (which is under ~/.config/autostart/ by default), like so:

Exec=sh -c "sleep 3 && arch-update --tray"

• If you used the arch-update-tray.service systemd service, run systemctl --user edit --full arch-update-tray.service and modify the ExecStart= line, like so:

ExecStart=sh -c "sleep 3 && arch-update --tray"

• If you're using a standalone Window Manager or a Wayland Compositor, modify the command in your "auto-start" apps / your configuration file, like so:

sleep 3 && arch-update --tray

If the systray applet still does not start at boot, try to gradually increase the sleep value.

Modify the check cycle

If you enabled the systemd timer, a check for available updates is automatically launched at boot and then once per hour.

If you want to customize the check cycle, run systemctl --user edit --full arch-update.timer and modify the OnUnitActiveSec value to your liking.
For instance, if you want Arch-Update to check for new updates every 10 minutes instead:

[...]
[Timer]
OnStartupSec=15
OnUnitActiveSec=10m
[...]

Time units are s for seconds, m for minutes, h for hours, d for days...
See https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.time.html#Parsing%20Time%20Spans for more details.

In case you want Arch-Update to check for new updates only once at boot, you can simply delete the OnUnitActiveSec line completely.

Run Arch-Update in a specific terminal emulator

gio (used to launch the arch-update terminal application via the arch-update.desktop file when the systray applet is clicked) currently has a default limited list of known terminal emulators.
As such, if you don't have any of these "known" terminal emulators installed on your system, you might face an issue where clicking the systray applet does nothing (as gio couldn't find a terminal emulator from the said list). Incidentally, you might have multiple terminal emulators installed on your system. In both cases, you can specify which terminal emulator to use.

To do so, install the xdg-terminal-exec AUR package, create the ~/.config/xdg-terminals.list file and add the name of the .desktop file of your terminal emulator of choice in it (e.g. Alacritty.desktop).
See https://github.com/Vladimir-csp/xdg-terminal-exec?tab=readme-ov-file#configuration for more details.

Contributing

See the contributing guidelines.

License

Arch-Update is licensed under the GPL-3.0 license (or any later version of that license).