Install software from PPAs

PPAs work like normal Ubuntu archives. You can install software in the usual way – for example, through apt-get or synaptic – and whenever there’s an update Ubuntu will prompt you to install it.

To start installing software from a PPA, you need to tell Ubuntu where to find it and how to verify the integrity of the packages.

Add a PPA to your Ubuntu system

Important

This is not an endorsement of any of the software in PPAs. You must make sure you trust the PPA owner before installing their software.

  • Visit the PPA’s overview page in Launchpad and look for the heading that reads Adding this PPA to your system. Make a note of the PPA’s location, which looks like:

ppa:gwibber-daily/ppa

  • Open a terminal and enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:user/ppa-name

Replace ppa:user/ppa-name with the PPA’s location that you noted above.

Your system will now fetch the PPA’s key. This enables your Ubuntu system to verify that the packages in the PPA have not been interfered with since they were built.

  • Now, as a one-off, you should tell your system to pull down the latest list of software from each archive it knows about, including the PPA you just added:

sudo apt-get update

Now you’re ready to start installing software from the PPA! If you already have the software installed and you’re adding the PPA to get a more recent/different version, you may just need to run:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Next steps

To publish software in your own PPA, you need to build a source package.