Removing PPA via terminal

Repositories in Linux

The Linux programs are available to meet the needs of users. Many of these programs are stored in software archives commonly referred to as repositories. A repository is a collection of files that has information about various software, their versions, and some other details like the checksum. It makes it easy to install new software, while also providing a high level of security since the software is thoroughly tested and built specifically for each version of Linux....

Need for PPA in Linux :

PPA’s are the only way to get your software updated in between two Linux-Distro releases. In other words, if a new version of your favorite software comes out then you may not have to wait until the next version of the distro comes out because the latest versions are not available in the repository so here we can use PPA to install the latest version of any software from the repository. This makes it easy for Linux users to install packages in the same way they install standard packages During the beta testing of software, a developer may want some end-users to test their upcoming release even if a stable version of the software is available in the official repositories, they can use PPA....

Using PPA in Debian based Ubuntu(20.04 LTS):

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....

Adding PPA via terminal:

To add a PPA from the terminal, we use the syntax as shown below:...

Backup of Repository Sources:

Ubuntu maintains a list of repositories in the “/etc/apt/sources.list” file. Before doing anything or manually editing this text file, you should take a backup of sources by running the command below :...

Removing PPA via terminal :

To remove the PPA using terminal, we use the syntax as shown below:...

Problem with DEB packages:

If we want to install software using a DEB package, there is no guarantee that the installed software will be updated to a newer version when you run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade command. It’s because the apt upgrade method depends on the sources.list file. If there is no entry for software, it doesn’t get the update via the standard apt installation. But if the developers add an entry to the sources.list and then it gets updated automatically like regular software....

Security concerns with PPA’s:

There is always a risk that these third-party repositories may contain malicious packages having malware or adware which can be distributed through PPAs. Therefore we should always be careful while adding any random repository, as packages as these PPAs may or may not have been verified by Linux developers....