Re: Debian 13 Trixie GUI desktop environments

[Lee <ler762@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Aug 30, 2025 at 3:15 PM Andy Smith wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, Aug 30, 2025 at 04:24:59PM +0000, Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo En Ming wrote:
> > You mean Debian doesn't inform you if your OS needs an update?
>
> It is dependent on the desktop chosen. GNOME by default downloads
> updates, and notifies you of them with a desktop notification.
>
> The package "apticron" for email notifications has also existed in
> Debian for a decade or more though people still seem to enjoy
> reinventing it on their own.

Or perhaps it's that an email notification is useless for us and we
want a notification that will actually be noticed.

I've got two separate scripts:
1. to put the list of packages that can be upgraded into /etc/motd so
that when I ssh there I get a notification that updates are available

# crontab -l
# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
#
    ...
  47  4    *   *   *      (apt update >> apt-update.log 2>/dev/null)
&& (apt list --upgradable 2>/dev/null | egrep -v '^Listing' >|
/etc/motd)


2. a script that gets run when I login locally to pop up a desktop
notification that updates are available.

$ cat /usr/local/bin/check-for-updates.sh
#!/bin/bash
# see if there are any Debian updates and pop up a notice if there are

# to allow 'sudo' without entering a password you need an
#   /etc/sudoers.d/adm-apt-privs
# that has
#   Cmnd_Alias    ADM_COMMANDS = /usr/bin/apt update
#   %adm          ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: ADM_COMMANDS
#
# And an "Application Autostart" entry to run this script at login time
#   Start / Settings / Session and Startup
#   select "Application Autostart" tab
#   click the Add button
#     Name:        Check for updates
#     Description: Check for Debian updates
#     Command:     /usr/local/bin/check-for-updates.sh
#     Trigger:     on login

# get a temporary file
tempf=$(mktemp -q --tmpdir=/tmp  -t updXXXXX)
stat=$?
if [ ${stat} != 0 ]; then
   notify-send -u critical "OhNoes!!! check-for-updates: Unable to
create a temporary file.  Status: ${stat}"
   exit 9
fi

# wifi can take a while, so wait for an active network connection
/usr/bin/nm-online -q --timeout 120
stat=$?
if [ ${stat} != 0 ]; then
   notify-send -u critical "OhNoes!!! check-for-updates: nm-online
returned ${stat}"
fi

# check for updates
sudo apt update   1>/dev/null 2>&1  && \
apt list --upgradable  2>/dev/null  | grep -v '^Listing' > ${tempf}

[ -s "${tempf}" ] && \
notify-send -u critical "Debian updates available" "$(cat ${tempf})"


Regards
Lee