The Constant Interruption
Ubuntu Linux is excellent at keeping your system secure by regularly checking for software updates. However, its delivery mechanism can be incredibly disruptive. By default, Ubuntu checks for updates daily. If it finds any, it will automatically launch the graphical Software Updater application, throwing a large window right into the middle of your screen, regardless of what you are doing. If you are in the middle of a presentation, watching a movie, or writing code, this sudden pop-up is a massive workflow interruption.
How to Disable the Automatic Pop-Up GUI
You can configure Ubuntu so that it still checks for updates in the background, but instead of launching the massive window, it simply stays quiet until you are ready to update.
1. Open your application launcher (press the Super/Windows key) and type Software & Updates.
2. Click on the Software & Updates icon to open the configuration tool.
3. At the top of the window, click on the Updates tab.
4. Look for the dropdown menu labelled Automatically check for updates:
5. Change this from “Daily” to Never to completely kill the background check (meaning you must run `sudo apt update` manually from now on).
6. If you want to keep the background check but stop the pop-up, look at the dropdown menu labelled When there are other updates:
7. Change it to Display immediately to Display weekly or Display every two weeks to drastically reduce the frequency of the pop-up.
How to Disable the Pop-Up via Terminal (gsettings)
If you want to absolutely guarantee the graphical updater never launches on its own, you can disable the trigger using the command line.
1. Open your terminal.
2. Paste the following command and press Enter:
gsettings set com.ubuntu.update-notifier no-show-notifications true
This disables the update-notifier daemon from throwing notifications or launching the GUI. You will now be completely responsible for maintaining your system security by manually running your `apt` update commands in the terminal.