Update or manage software on your system and on your schedule using Discover or command-line. Continue to work while updates are being installed.
Manage and update software with Discover.
Please read the disclaimer before proceeding. We review and update guided solutions regularly. If you have suggestions or requests, please write support@kfocus.org.
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and most derivatives use Debian packages and the Apt system to install and update most software. The official documentation provides a great overview of all the pieces.
We recommend updating software packages once per day. This keeps your system current with the latest security and feature enhancements. Updates on Focus systems rarely cause issues because it uses only Long Term Support (LTS) releases, which are more reliable. The Focus team also curates and GPU drivers, making sure they meet hundreds of requirements on your system before you ever see them. All this regression testing is logged for all supported models.
Even with all these safeguards, however, we still recommend delaying updates until the end of the day. Although glitches are rare, it is best to deal with them on your own terms. To be extra cautious, you can use System Rollback to take a snapshot and rollback if desired. Another good tool is apt-rollback which can revert recent package installations.
The Discover package manager is the official KDE GUI to update, browse, install, and remove most software from the system. It updates and manages Apt, Snap, and Flatpak. Discover uses PackageKit to manage Apt packages. Please refer to the documentation as needed.
Below is the typical update procedure. Package updates are indicated by an update notifier icon in the system tray. Click on it to launch Discover.
Discover starts and the update list is refreshed.
Click on [ Update All ] to start the installation process.
Provide your password when prompted to begin the update.
Wait for Discover to download and install all packages. This can take seconds or minutes depending on the number of packages.
Discover will notify you when the updates are done installing.
Use Discover to find, install, and remove software.
One can manage software using the apt package tools including apt, apt-get, apt-cache, aptitude, and wajig. We recommend using apt for daily updates and aptitude when resolving more complex package issues.
The CLI tools use update as the keyword to update the list of software, while the upgrade keyword is used to install newer packages.
Q: I see a package called UEFI dbx when updating packages in Discover. Yet when I click [ Update All ], it does not complete. What do I need to do?
A: This is a firmware update that usually will fix itself within a few days. If it does not, you can enter into a terminal sudo fwupdmgr update. This Ask Ubuntu answer gives a more detailed discussion.
Q: I appear to have several unused packages. How can I remove them?
A: Enter the following into a terminal: sudo apt autoremove
Q: You also used to show Muon as an option. What happened?
A: As of Fall 2020, Muon does not appear actively developed. In addition, Discover has gotten significantly faster and more powerful. As a result, we dropped Muon from this guide on 2020-09-28.
Q: Discover proxy settings gets stuck. How can I resolve this?
A: Enter the following commands and follow the prompts.
Q: I see the following error message when fetching software updates. This happens when using Discover or the command-line. How can I fix this?
A: This is due to an expired key. This can be fixed as illustrated below.
The keyserver URL may alternately be hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80. This can be useful when working through firewalls. Updating the key should eliminate the error.
Q: I am seeing similar key issues with the QGIS repositories. Can I fix this too?
A: Yes. Try sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys F7E06F06199EF2F2 (thanks Justin!).
This is a partial revision history. See the git repository for all entries.
2025-04-19 274c0ff1 Update grammar and content per audit2024-08-01 45251c42 Add lightbox views, refresh content2024-07-26 7814a97d Sync primary images between guided solutions slideshow and articles2024-07-02 c83184e4 Switch to kfocus-mime schema2024-03-19 627b3225 Add syntax highlighting for codeblocks2023-11-18 e770b1c6 Add search and help bar2023-03-30 f05e61b0 Add hint about UEFI dbx update2022-07-19 3b5c2287 Update for 22.042021-10-10 5728326e Reformat to 2-column2021-09-22 dc862884 Update link and headline colors2021-08-23 681261b4 Review and update codeblocks2021-03-21 2a8443b2 Clarify language2020-09-28 fb8295ec Deprecate and remove Muon2020-09-10 5f5c2fe5 Added expired key actions in troubleshooting2020-06-10 669bd005 First publicationWe try hard to provide a useful solution validated by professionals. However, we cannot anticipate every situation, and therefore cannot guarantee this procedure will work for your needs. Always backup your data and test the solution to determine the correct procedure for you.
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