🛠️ How to Update Ubuntu Server

Viktor Niderman March 23, 2025

✅ One-liner:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt autoclean

🔍 Details:

1. Start with the basic update command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

This updates:

Libraries (e.g. OpenSSL)
Services (e.g. SSH, systemd)
Command-line tools (e.g. curl, wget)

2. Update the system kernel:

sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Upgrading the kernel often includes critical security patches (like Spectre, Meltdown, etc.)

3. Clean up old unused packages:

sudo apt autoremove -y
sudo apt autoclean

This frees up space and keeps your system tidy.

📁 Potential problems

🛠️ Ubuntu Update Issue: 1 not upgraded

Sometimes after running sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade, you might see this message:

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

This means that one package couldn’t be upgraded automatically.

❓ Why does this happen?

Usually, it’s because:

The package requires new dependencies
The upgrade may remove or replace other packages
It’s being held back by the system for safety reasons

✅ How to find and fix it

Use the following command to list packages that were not upgraded:

apt list --upgradable

Example output:

Listing... Done
ubuntu-drivers-common/noble-updates 1:0.9.7.6ubuntu3.2 amd64 [upgradable from: 1:0.9.7.6ubuntu3.1]
N: There are 2 additional versions. Please use the '-a' switch to see them.

Now you can simply install the package manually:

sudo apt install ubuntu-drivers-common

That’s it — problem solved!

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