To see what updates are available for a mac, or to install a software update from the terminal of mac os x, amongst many other options including how to ignore particular updates, you’ll use the ‘softwareupdate’ command line tool as we’ll instruct below.. Lpt: update your mac with the softwareupdate command line tool for a much faster experience submitted 1 year ago * by microbug_ updating macos through the app store can take a very long time — for me it's typically around 30 mins of rebooting and waiting.. When you run the softwareupdate command, the system will download the specified packages, check them, and install them just like the mac app store and apple's now-retired software update utility..
Ran softwareupdate -i -r to install the [recommended] install only, which was the command line tools. it downloaded twice, installed once, then completed. seeing that it didn't solve the problem, i reran softwareupdate --list and the recommendation persisted. in appstore, the software update had disappeared, then reappeared.. Mac users who prefer to have a more traditional unix toolkit accessible to them through the terminal may wish to install the optional command line tools subsection of the xcode ide.. Mac os x mavericks made installation of xcode command line tools much simpler. alternatives the osx gcc installer is an open source project to provide the gcc compiler and related tools..