skontar / update-checker

Fedora XFCE Update Checker

Fedora XFCE Update Checker

Update Checker is a simple application used to check for updates on Fedora 22+ systems (e.g. the ones using DNF as package manager). It is meant for XFCE desktop environment but should be working in any desktop environment supporting notifications and system tray notification icons with slight modification.

It checks for updates in time intervals and notifies user about updates being ready by notification and yellow/red icon (for regular/security updates). As a default it only cares about security updates and checks every 4 hours.

It also checks if either 'screen' or 'tmux' is installed and uses it for calling 'dnf upgrade', so if X server crashes during the update process, it continues independently. It is highly recommended to install either.

See https://goo.gl/hOFxid for one instance of a problem when crashing X server crashed the update process and corrupted RPM database. Better to be safe than sorry.

To make mouse scrolling working in 'screen', add the following line to '~/.screenrc':

termcapinfo xterm* ti@:te@

To make mouse scrolling working in 'tmux', add the following line to '~/.tmux.conf':

set -g terminal-overrides 'xterm*:smcup@:rmcup@'

or

set -g mouse on

Installation

Prerequisites are python3 and python3-gobject packages, which should be installed on Fedora by default.

Download the application directory and put it anywhere. Add update_checker.py to your startup script.

Usage

Run update_checker.py. The application runs on background and appears only when updates are detected. It also has a few commandline switches:

-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-a, --all             report on all updates, not just security ones
                      (default: False)
-s, --no-safe-update  do not use either screen or tmux for safer updates
                      (default: False)
-n, --normal-terminal
                      use normal terminal window, by default dropdown
                      terminal is used (default: False)
-i INTERVAL, --interval INTERVAL
                      check for updates every INTERVAL hours (can be
                      fraction) (default: 4.0)

Testing

It was tested on various Fedora 22-24 desktop systems, mostly XFCE spins.

Icons artwork

Website: IconArchive
Artist: Hopstarter (Jojo Mendoza)
License: CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivate 4.0