Hi, I would like to run a cron job which periodically checks if I have upgradable packages. One way to do it is probably like this:
$ apt-get upgrade -s | grep -q "^0 upgraded" In case exit code is >0, then there are upgradable packages. The second solution I came up with is: $ for package in $(dpkg-query -f '${binary:Package}\n' -W); do\ apt-show-versions -u "$package" &>/dev/null && break;\ done Again, if exit code is >0, then there is at least one upgradable package. Of course, a solution like "apt-show-versions | grep -q "upgradeable"" would also work. For me the "apt-get upgrade -s | grep -q "^0 upgraded"" seems to be the most reasonable solution, but maybe there is even a better way? thanks, Martin