upcheck

Checker and notifier for ArchLinux available updates writen in Rust that's totally Desktop/WM environment dependient.

How to install and get it working?

Using AUR package:

Install the upcheck package and enable/start the upcheck.timer user unit with systemctl --user enable upcheck.timer && systemctl --user start upcheck.timer

Manually:

First install pacman-contrib from ArchLinux repos:

# pacman -Syu --needed pacman-contrib

Installation is easy, put the bin/upcheck binary in the /usr/bin/ system directory, then put the upcheck.service and upcheck.timer into $HOME/.config/systemd/user/ and finally enable/start the upcheck.timer unit with the command systemctl --user enable upcheck.timer && systemctl --user start upcheck.timer

Important note: you need a notifications server if you aren't using Cinnamon, Deepin, Enlightenment, GNOME, GNOME Flashback or KDE Plasma.

Building yourself

If you don't want to use the provided binary, you can compile it following the next commands:

# pacman -S rust
$ git clone https://gitlab.com/edu4rdshl/upcheck.git
$ cd upcheck
$ cargo build --release
$ cp target/release/upcheck $HOME/.local/bin/

Then continue with "How to install and get it working" skipping the binary section.

How it works?

It use the checkupdates bash script provided by the pacman-contrib package. First, it exec the command checkupdates and save the output in a variable, if the variable is not an empty string, mean that there are available updates and then send the variable content using the notify-rust crate.

What is the purpose?

It doesn't have any special purpose, it was created only trying to avoid the user manual interaction of checking available updates everytime and show it when are available.

How can I change the execution frequency time?

Modify the upcheck.timer unit and change the OnUnitActiveSec= option to what you want. See man 7 systemd.time for the time specifications.

Screenshots

Here's a couple of screenshots of upcheck in action:

Updates available:

No updates available: