upcheck

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

How to install and get it working?

First install pacman-contrib from ArchLinux repos:

# pacman -Syu --needed pacman-contrib

Manually, Withouth systemd service:

Put the bin/upcheck binary in $HOME/.local/bin/ or /usr/bin and then execute upcheck with these parameters:

upcheck <N time in minutes> # Check for updates every N minutes.

If you want to start it at login, add parameters to bashrc or WM/DE autostart config or just enable the systemd service.

Using AUR package:

Install the upcheck package.

Manually for user only:

Installation is easy, put the bin/upcheck binary in $HOME/.local/bin/, put the upcheck.service into $HOME/.config/systemd/user/. Edit the upcheck.service file in the ExecStart= section pointing to the upcheck executable path and finally enable/start upcheck.service with the command systemctl --user enable upcheck.service && systemctl --user start upcheck.service

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.service unit and change the ExecStart= option to the time that what you want in minutes before the executable.

Example:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/upcheck 90 # Execute upcheck every 90 minutes.

Screenshots

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

Updates available:

No updates available: