Put an ‘up’ alias in your life (to start with)

I’m an update junkie. I like my system and my applications to be up to date. In the new mobile « App Store » centric approach to the world, it’s quite simple. But that word is too bland and centralized to please me. I’m more of a terminal, scripts & packages manager guy. So, how do I update my desktop ?

Update everything with a short command

On GNU/Linux and macOS I rely on aliases for this kind of stuff. My Shell is zsh, but it works to with bash, fish or whatever. And the most important alias to me is up. It’s the one I use to update all the things and launch actions I need to do on a regular basis to feel nice.

To do the same, edit your ~/.zshrc (or the file used by your Shell) and add:

alias up='update && commands && you && want && to && use'

Once saved, run exec zsh or source ~/.zshrc. The up command is now available and will be when a new zsh Shell is started.

For example, on Ubuntu I often add this up alias:

alias up='sudo apt update && \
  sudo apt full-upgrade -y && \
  sudo apt autoremove && \
  sudo snap refresh'

It updates the system, Snaps and clean unnecessary packages.

Feel free, add complexity

But you can go further and make it more complex by adding third-party packages managers, backup actions, etc.

For example my up alias on a daily used macOS system is:

up() {
  softwareupdate --install --all # macOS CLI updater
  brew update
  brew upgrade
  brew cleanup --prune=all -s
  bun upgrade
  npm update -g
  rustup update
  v up
  sync_git # A personal sync git repo function
}

As you can see here, it’s on multiple lines and declared as a function to be more readable. You can add variables, other functions and more complex Shell stuff tp such aliases. For example add a function call to git pull some repositories or update your mirrors (yes, I do that).

You can then run up on a regular basis through CRON or other mechanisms, and log outputs to check if anything went wrong. I prefer to launch it manually when I want to be sure everything is up to date (sometimes more than once© a day)… but I have a compulsive disorder about that.

Aliases are the spice of life

Of course, you can improve your life by multiplying the aliases you use, making commands shorter and smarter. Creating dotfiles and sharing them. But it’s another story, I’ll cover that in a futre blog post.

Nonetheless, here are some of my favorite aliases. And my personal advice: ask ChaGPT for new ideas, it’s good at this game. And it’s an interesting way to benchmark developers focused LLM 😏

# One letter is enough
alias c='ncal -ws FR'
alias f='find / -type f -name 2> /dev/null'
alias h='history | grep'
alias u='du -hsx * | sort -rh'
# Replace `pbcopy` with the copy/paste tool of your choice
alias pgen='gpg --gen-random --armor 2 32 | pbcopy'
alias serve='python3 -m http.server'
# Lots of git focused aliases
alias gl='git log --oneline --all --graph --decorate'
alias gac='git add . && git commit -m'
alias gst='git status'
alias gsw='git switch'
alias gri='git rebase -i'
alias dclean='docker ps -aq | xargs -r docker rm -f && docker images -q | xargs -r docker rmi -f'
# My Clever Cloud Fast deploy command
alias ccfd='git add . && git commit -m "Fast deploy" && \
  clever deploy && clever open'

checksite() {
    if curl --output /dev/null --silent --head --fail $1; then
        echo "$1 is online"
    else
        echo "$1 is offline"
    fi
}

mkcd() {
    mkdir -p $1
    cd $1
}

w() {
    if [[ "$2" == "--full" ]]; then
        curl "wttr.in/$1"
    else
        curl "wttr.in/$1?format=2"
    fi
}