09 Distribution Notes

9. Distribution notes

9.1 Summary

Distribution	Tools to select	Tools to clear
Arch Linux	paru, paru AUR, flatpak, Gear Lever	pacman, dnf, nobara-sync, apt
Fedora	dnf, flatpak, Gear Lever	the Arch tools, nobara-sync, apt
Nobara	nobara-sync, flatpak, Gear Lever	the Arch tools, dnf, apt
Debian, Ubuntu	apt, flatpak, Gear Lever	the Arch tools, dnf, nobara-sync

The defaults suit Arch Linux. A user of another distribution changes the selection one time after the installation.

9.2 Arch Linux

The default selection is correct.

Function	Command
The count of the repository updates	checkupdates
The count of the AUR updates	paru -Qua
The installation of both kinds	paru -Syu

checkupdates comes from the package pacman-contrib. It downloads the package lists into a temporary directory, so it does not use root privileges and it does not change the state of the system.

You can select pacman in place of paru. Clear the paru checkbox for the repository packages first, because the two tools have the same package domain. pacman then runs as sudo pacman -Syu.

9.3 Fedora

Select dnf and clear the Arch tools.

Function	Command
The count	dnf -q check-update
The installation	sudo dnf upgrade

The count command does not use root privileges. DNF 4 and DNF 5 both give the correct count. Section 8.5 describes the parser.

9.4 Nobara

Select nobara-sync and clear the Arch tools. Also clear dnf, because dnf and nobara-sync have the same package domain.

Function	Command
The count	dnf -q check-update
The installation	nobara-sync cli

Three properties are specific to Nobara:

• nobara-sync cli installs the system updates and also applies the Nobara fixups.
• nobara-sync raises its own privileges with sudo or with pkexec. bs-update does not add sudo to it.
• The count uses DNF and not nobara-sync check-updates. The command nobara-sync check-updates asks for the root password. A scheduled check cannot answer that question.

nobara-sync cli leaves the Flatpaks alone without the option --all. Do not clear the checkbox flatpak. bs-updater then counts the Flatpak updates and installs them.

9.5 Debian and Ubuntu

Select apt and clear the Arch tools. This selection also suits each distribution that uses APT, for example Linux Mint and Pop!_OS.

Function	Command
The count	apt-get -q -s upgrade
The installation	sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Section 8.6 describes the two effects of this design: the age of the count, and the packages that stay back.

9.6 All distributions

Flatpak and Gear Lever are independent of the distribution. Do not clear the two checkboxes if you use these two systems.

Function	Command
The count of the Flatpak updates	flatpak remote-ls --updates
The installation of the Flatpak updates	flatpak update
The count of the AppImage updates	gearlever --list-updates
The installation of the AppImage updates	gearlever --update --all --yes

Section 8.7 gives the full Gear Lever command.

9.7 A system with more than one package manager

pacman, dnf and apt are in three different package domains. bs-updater does not report a conflict between them, and it counts each of them separately. A normal system has one of these three tools.