"I want my software to stay out of my way and only update when I say to" also me the moment an update releases for anything:

"I want my software to stay out of my way and only update... ##kde ##discover

https://media.kbin.earth/02/0f/020f203623438d1701f967259ec691c0e6e355ac76f9b6fb421ca6f73dfd533a.png

I just want my software to leave me the fuck alone and update automatically. Why is this so difficult?
There’s probably an option in your distro to automatically install updates, but it’s annoying when that happens when you’re in the middle of something or if they require restarts
As much as I hate to praise Windows, that’s why they have “update and shut down” when there are updates available.
yay --noconfirm && poweroff
I think you may have glossed over the “automatically” part.
Set up a cron job or systemd timer and have your computer suddenly powerdown.
Brother, I am not a programmer and do not know what any of these words mean, and am not interested in becoming one. I just want to use a computer. This is precisely why I can’t use Linux.
If I recall Windows correctly, a scheduled task.
I don’t know what that is either.
Both cron jobs and scheduled tasks are ways of making a computer do something at a certain time and/or date automatically without any user input apart from the initial inputting of setting it up.