Personally, I keep Ubuntu up to date by waiting for the little icon to pop in my tray that says I have updates, and I don't need the command line to do any part

Personally, I keep Ubuntu up to date by waiting for the little icon to pop in my tray that says I have updates, and I don't need the command line to do any part of it. It still updates all the packages I have without having to worry about looking for updates for various programs separately. I personally consider this a huge improvement over updating software by going to various websites or having several different updaters running in the background (or simply not updating your software), but perhaps you don't have non-Apple programs that need to be updated, or perhaps you don't consider this a disadvantage. Whatever works for you, works for you. BTW, I'm fond of the command line for getting some kinds of things done, but even if you don't feel comfortable at a command line, it's a highly efficient way to tell someone how to accomplish a task (as opposed to something like Step 1: Go to the System menu, drop down the menu, expand the item labeled Administration, and click on the item labeled "Synaptic Package Manager." Step 2: click on the Search icon..., etc.). For a task that can be accomplished in one or two commands, it is often the case that there might be 10 steps involved in explaining how to navigate a GUI.