Show the number of pending system upgrades, as reported by aptitude. More specifically, show: packages upgraded, newly installed, to remove, and not upgraded.

Requirements

Dependencies: aptitude, bash

Suggested: fonts-font-awesome

Suggested usage

Copy the i3blocks.conf section into your i3blocks configuration. We assume you use signal=1 but you can choose another signal number if you prefer. Create apt/dpkg hooks to signal the script. For example, create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80i3blocks with contents

APT::Update::Post-Invoke { "pkill -RTMIN+1 i3blocks || true"; };
DPkg::Post-Invoke { "pkill -RTMIN+1 i3blocks || true"; };

Warning: make sure to

sudo chown root:root /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80i3blocks
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80i3blocks

so that only the root user may modify 80i3blocks. This is necessary because apt has root privileges when upgrading the system, and therefore commands in 80i3blocks will be executed with root privileges.

You may also combine this script with a cron job that calls apt-get update periodically for a more "popup upgrade reminder" feeling.

Simple usage

Instead of using signal=1 in the configuration, you can use interval=3600 to have the script execute every hour. This method avoids the usage of apt/dpkg hooks.

Config

[apt-upgrades]
command=$SCRIPT_DIR/apt-upgrades
signal=1
interval=once
#PENDING_SYMBOL="\uf021 "
#SYMBOL_ONLY=0
#ALWAYS_PRINT=1
#PENDING_COLOR="#00FF00"
#NONPENDING_COLOR="#FFFFFF"