packages

Yum Check Update

July 9, 2021

To check which packages are available for an update.

yum check-update

Ubuntu Packages Kept Back

June 4, 2020

If you see packages are being kept back in Ubuntu, you can run the following to force an update.

sudo apt-get --with-new-pkgs upgrade

Local RPM Install

March 11, 2019

Steps for creating a local RPM package installation.

# download plugin
yum install yum-plugin-downloadonly
# download package and dependencies
yum install --downloadonly reiserfs
# download package and dependencies to a specific directory
yum install --downloadonly --downloaddir=/home/ec2-user package
# download multiple packages
yum install --downloadonly --downloaddir=/root/mypackages/ package1 package2
# finally install package
rpm -ivh -r /home/ec2-user package.rpm

One way to speed up the Linux package updates is to use a package mirror made available by Linode. They are hosted in all six of their data centers. Just pick a data center where your data is Linode server is located by doing the following.

Edit your sources list

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Search and replace

# Replace this address 
http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ 
 
# with the new address 
http://fremont.mirrors.linode.com/ubuntu/
 
# you can also use this - returns round robin of all locations
http://mirrors.linode.com/ubuntu/

The next time you run a Linux update, it will be significantly faster.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade