Check for updates and install them from Terminal/Command Line (The Long story)

Want to install all available updates from a command line?  Here’s how.
(Yes I know I already posted this…)

Open terminal, type sudo softwareudpate -i -a and hit enter.

Why would you want to do this one may ask?  Well, the reason for me was sort of strange..  I have a personal Mac Mini server that I use for OD authentication, file sharing, etc.   The other day I went to login and the screen was all scrambled – I couldn’t read anything.  I tried a few things with no success.  I was going to rebuild the box but quickly realized I didn’t have a recent OD export to restore to.  So – knowing that I was an OS revision or two behind I decided to give the OS updates a shot to see if they would fix my scrambled screen issue.  I knew the time it would take to login and what the prompts would require to do so..  Saw the screen change to the desktop wallpaper (or a scrambled version of it), hit terminal via spotlight and then ran the updates.  When it automatically rebooted it ran through the updates and my scrambled screen was fixed.  I know this will probably have nothing to do with the reason that most people would run through updates via terminal, but felt like sharing 🙂