How to edit Software and Updates' options in terminal?

Question

I need to edit Software and Updates' options in terminal. Namely the options:

• Install updates from
• and automatical updates period, whether to check for them etc. etc.

Where can I find this options in the file system ?

Answer 1

1. The "Install updates from" option is basically your /etc/apt/sources.list file. It can be edited with this command:

   sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
   

   Some lines are commented (with #) when they are disabled. Just remove the comment from the front to enable them.

2. If you're referring to the other options on the page, I can only find some of them:

   • "When there are other updates" is this dconf key, time is in days:

     /com/ubuntu/update-notifier/regular-auto-launch-interval
     

   • "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version" is in the file /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades. Edit it with this command:

     sudo nano /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades
     

     There will be a line starting with Prompt=. Change this to never, normal or lts. It is also explained in the comments.

   The other options I'm not sure of. I'm guessing that they are managed by a background service running as root. If you're interested, I found this with a dconf watch / command while changing the settings.