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Disabling update-notifier in Ubuntu 12.04

http://www.tolaris.com/2012/06/01/disabling-update-notifier-in-ubuntu-12-04/ 

My team manages a number of user workstations running Ubuntu 12.04 “Precise Pangolin”. We install a standard APT configuration which automatically upgrades these PCs as soon as packages are available, without prompting and without a GUI. Therefore we also need to disable the update-notifier so it doesn’t display these packages to the user.

This isn’t necessary if your user doesn’t have admin access (is a member of the sudo group). Update-notifier won’t run if you don’t have sudo.

Method 1: Prevent update-notifier from starting at login

As the user, open a terminal and run:

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mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart cp /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop ~/.config/autostart/ editor ~/.config/autostart/update-notifier.desktop

Find this line:

1	X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=60

And replace it with:

1	X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false

Now log out and in again, or kill the running update-notifier:

1	killall update-notifier

Or just paste all this into the shell:

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mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart cp /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop ~/.config/autostart/ sed -i 's/X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=60/X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false/' ~/.config/autostart/update-notifier.desktop killall update-notifier

Method 2: Prevent update-notifier from starting at login for all users

The above method works only on the user that is currently logged in. This is useful if you have a one-user workstation. But if you want to make a system-wide change, run:

1	sudo sed -i 's/X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=60/X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false/' /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop

Method 3: Let update-notifier run, but disable notifications

This method allows update-notifier to run in the background, but tells it not to display notifications. As the first method, this only works on the current user.

• Start dconf-editor from the Unity menu or run dialog.
• Browse to “com.ubuntu.update-notifier”.
• Set “no-show-notifications” to true.

Or just run this handy command:

1	gsettings set com.ubuntu.update-notifier no-show-notifications true

Enabling automatic security updates without update-notifier

If you’ve done the above and still want security updates, do the following. First Create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades containing:

1 2	APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1"; APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";

Then edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades and uncomment or add:

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Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {     "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}";     "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}-security";     "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}-updates"; };

Note: You can also disable this through the GUI updater Under “Settings”. Yes, but that also disables GUI-less unattended-upgrades. The above method just disables the user GUI.

The above method is corporate, not the more common “single user who is his own admin”.

Control Startup Applications

Applications can automatically start when you log into Ubuntu. Packages can automatically add their own autostart entries – for example, install Dropbox and you’ll likely have it automatically starting with your desktop. If you have quite a few of these entries – or a slower system – this can make your desktop take longer to appear. You can control these startup applications from the Startup Applications dialog.

Ubuntu hides most of the system’s default autostart entries from this dialog. To view them, run the following command in a terminal:

sudo sed -i ‘s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g’ /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

This command modifies each autostart file and changes the “NoDisplay” parameter from “true” to “false,” making each entry appear in the list. After running this command, restart the Startup Applications dialog and you’ll see more options.

Use a Lighter Desktop Environment

If you’re using older hardware that struggles with Ubuntu’s default Unity desktop environment, you may want to use a lighter desktop environment. Good options includeLXDE, XFCE – or even something like Xmonad, if you want a super-minimal environment. These options are just scratching the surface of the available lightweight desktop environments.

Use Lighter Applications

Along with a lighter desktop environment, more lightweight applications can increase the performance of an older, slower system. For example, if you’re typing up the occasional text document in LibreOffice Writer, why not try Abiword instead? It has less features, but it’s faster.

If you’re using Mozilla Thunderbird or GNOME Evolution for your email, you might try Sylpheed, a more lightweight graphical email program. You’ll find lightweight alternatives for most programs you use – just give it a Google. You can even ditch graphical applications entirely and do everything with terminal applications – you’ll find a lot of terminal-based alternatives, too.

Reduce Boot Menu Delay

If you have multiple operating systems installed, Ubuntu displays the GRUB boot loader menu for 10 seconds when you start your computer. After 10 seconds, it automatically starts your default boot entry. If you normally wait for Ubuntu to select the default boot entry, you can reduce this timeout and take precious seconds off your boot process.

To modify this setting, open the /etc/default/grub file in a text editor:

gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

Change the value of GRUB_TIMEOUT in the file to a lower number. If you set the timeout to something extremely low – say, 1 second – you can access the boot menu by continually pressing the arrow keys or Escape key while your computer boots.

Save the file and run the following command to apply your changes:

sudo update-grub2

You can also modify this setting – and many other GRUB2 settings — with Grub-Customizer.