One single command to update everything in Ubuntu?

There are 3 decent choices:

1. You could create a script something like the following:

   #!/bin/bash
   set -e
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get upgrade
   sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
   

   Call it something like update.sh and place it in /usr/local/bin and then make the script executable by running:

   sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/update.sh
   

2. Another method would be to create a bash alias (in ~/.bashrc) or wherever you normally store your aliases:

   alias update='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade'
   

3. A final method would be to simply string the 3 commands together on the commandline:

   sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
   

A few choices...

Reference:

• Combine apt-get update and apt-get upgrade in one command

We can have a one-liner command (no need to scripts, just copy-paste)

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt clean -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

• update - updates the list of packages but do not install
• upgrade - install new versions of packages if new versions are available
• full-upgrade - performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole (fixing bad dependencies then)
• autoremove, autoclean and clean - clean old packages which are not needed any more
• option -y does not request for permission on every step
• && states that it just runs the next command if the previous was successfully executed

If you are annoyed by too much typing, you can define yourself an "alias". This can be done e.g. by adding a line to the end of your $HOME/.profile like this:

alias sau='sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude upgrade'

(of course you can replace "sau" by something else -- for me that's an acronym to Sudo Apt-get Update). After saving the file, open a new shell (or "source" the .profile again running . $HOME/.profile. Now you can always simply type "sau" to do the complete job. Works great for me with multiple machines.