How to use PPA in Debian based Ubuntu(20.04 LTS) In Linux
Ubuntu provides a platform called Launchpad that enables us to create our own repositories. All we need to do is to create our own source package, upload it and the Launchpad will build binaries and then host them in our own apt repository. This makes it easy for Ubuntu users to install packages in the same way they install standard Ubuntu packages, and one of the advantages is that they will automatically get updated once we make them available.
We can add the PPA repository to our sources. list file and when we update our system, it would know about the availability of this new software and we can install it using the standard sudo apt install command.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shutter/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install shutter
It is important to use the command sudo apt update to update our system or else our system will not know when a new package is available. If we try to install software without mentioning its PPA in sources.list file then it will show the package has no installation candidate.
We can also add PPA to our sources.list file using the below commands :
deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu focal main
deb-src https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu focal main
The above command is similar to the add-apt-repository command but we need the exact repository URL and operating system version.
In this example for demonstration, we are using the PPA of a screenshot tool named Shutter. To know the PPA for the latest version of any software we go to the website launchpad.net and type the software name we need in the search dialogue box for example shutter screenshot. Launchpad is a software collaboration platform for building and hosting ubuntu packages.
When we use PPA, it doesn’t change our original sources.list file instead it creates two files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory, a list and a backup file with suffix ‘.save’. The backup file with the .save extension ensures that adding PPAs will not change the original sources.list. It also helps in removing the PPA. Whereas the files with the suffix ‘.list’ have the command that adds the information about the repository.
Using PPA in Linux
Personal Package Archives (PPA) is a unique software repository intended for non-standard software/updates. The PPA allows application developers and Linux users to create their own repositories to distribute software. It allows us to upload Ubuntu source packages to be built and published as an apt repository by Launchpad. With PPA, we can easily get newer software versions or software that are not available via the official Ubuntu repositories.
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