Clear Linux Software Updater

Warning

swupd is unmaintained. Intel discontinued Clear Linux OS in July 2025 and the swupd-client repository is archived read-only, so swupd no longer receives updates.

ID

swupd

Home page

https://github.com/clearlinux/swupd-client

Platforms

🐧 Linux (Clear Linux OS only)

Operations

installed · search · install · upgrade_all · remove · cleanup

purl types

pkg:swupd

CLI name

swupd

Issues and PRs

📦 manager: swupd

Source

meta_package_manager/managers/swupd.toml

Clear Linux’s software updater manages bundles (collections of files), not individually-versioned packages: bundles carry no version of their own and follow the single whole-system OS version.

--quiet is swupd’s blessed machine channel: data flows through its print() helper while decorations (headers, “-” prefixes, “Total:” footers) flow through info(), which --quiet drops. Every query below relies on it.

Two operations are deliberately not declared:

  • outdated: swupd check-update reports a single whole-OS version delta through its exit code (0 when an update exists), not a per-bundle listing.

  • upgrade of a single bundle: bundles cannot be upgraded individually, only the whole OS via swupd update, declared as upgrade_all.

What mpm adds to swupd

Through mpm, swupd gains --exact and --extended search, to narrow to exact names or match descriptions.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover swupd alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your swupd commands, in mpm

You already know swupd: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…

With swupd

With mpm

List what’s installed

swupd bundle-list --quiet

mpm --swupd installed

Search for a package

swupd bundle-list --all --quiet

mpm --swupd search bundle-list

Install a package

swupd bundle-add --assume=yes <package_id>

mpm install pkg:swupd/<package_id>

Upgrade everything

swupd update --assume=yes

mpm --swupd upgrade --all

Remove a package

swupd bundle-remove --assume=yes <package_id>

mpm remove pkg:swupd/<package_id>

Clear caches

swupd clean

mpm --swupd cleanup --cache

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations

Operation

Supported

Notes

installed

✓

outdated

orphans

search

✓

exact and extended search backfilled by mpm

install

✓

upgrade

upgrade_all

✓

remove

✓

sync

cleanup

✓

doctor

Selecting and configuring swupd

Deselect swupd for a single run with --no-swupd, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
swupd = false

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.swupd]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template swupd prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes

A few jobs you would otherwise script around swupd, one mpm command each:

  • Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --swupd dump swupd.toml, then mpm restore swupd.toml on the next one.

  • Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --swupd sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation

System-wide manager: mpm wraps its privileged operations in sudo out of the box. Instead of letting the tool prompt mid-run, mpm primes the credential cache up-front, with a single branded password prompt at most. Turn escalation off for rootless setups with --no-sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

Root is required for its cleanup_cache, install, remove, upgrade_all operations.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown

State of Clear Linux Software Updater’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

  • Status: ➖ N/A (Clear Linux discontinued July 2025)

  • Reference: Clear Linux OS

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

  • Registry: No registry of their own

  • Retraction: ➖ Not applicable: these managers either delegate to whichever manager they front (pkcon, topgrade) or wrap a retired project or a discontinued platform

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --allow-unsupported-managers opts back in.

Version probe

The version is probed by running:

$ swupd --version
swupd 7.0.0

and extracted with:

r"swupd (?P<version>\S+)"

Reference traces

Raw native outputs captured in the bundled definition: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know Clear Linux Software Updater well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ swupd bundle-list --quiet
editors
os-core
os-core-update

$ swupd bundle-list --all --quiet
curl
editors
os-core

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --swupd installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog

  • 7.2.0 (2026-07-09)

    • Add Clear Linux’s swupd with installed, search, install, upgrade --all, remove and cleanup support, operating on bundles; a bundled configuration-defined manager.