Ubuntu

PPA pages in Launchpad lack installation instruction

Asked by VanillaMozilla

There's a crucial line missing from all the PPA pages. There's a section "Adding this PPA to your system", but it lacks the line
sudo apt-get install <ppa-name>.

If you click on the hint, "Read about installing", it ends with the unhelpful information "Now you're ready to start installing software from the PPA!". How easy it would be to add Step 4, which of course is the missing "apt-get install" line.

Too easy and obvious to fix, you think? Not for those of us who do this once every year or two.

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#1

"sudo apt-get install <ppa-name>" does not make sense.

The command "apt-get install ..." needs a package name as parameter, and not the name of a PPA.

Package names are something like "gedit", and PPA names look like "ppa:mc3man/older". They usually do not have anything in common.

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VanillaMozilla (vanillamozilla) said : 		#2

Of course. You also need to tell the user to replace <ppa-name> with the actual name of the package. This will be obvious to whoever makes the correction.

Here's an example of a PPA: https://launchpad.net/~pmjdebruijn/+archive/ubuntu/usbguard . Click on "Read about installing" and look at Step 2 as an example. Just try it and you'll see.

The actual change that I suggest is to replace
"Now you're ready to start installing software from the PPA!"

with

"Step 4: Install the package:
sudo apt-get install package-name
Replace package-name with the name of the package."

I would convert this directly to a bug report, but since it's a documentation bug in Launchpad, I have no idea whom to contact or what package or component it belongs to.

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#3

"You also need to tell the user to replace <ppa-name> with the actual name of the package."
You again are mixing up package names and PPA names.

"sudo apt-get install package-name" isn't the only possibility to install packages from a PPA.
As soon as the PPA has been added to your sources list configuration and a cache refresh (e.g. apt update) has been run, whatever package management program you use, it will fetch packages from that PPA if they have the highest version number and are installable without dependency problems - not only apt but also ubuntu-software, synaptic, update-manager, …

If you want to report that as a bug, the right address - as far as I know - is https://bugs.launchpad.net/launchpad/

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VanillaMozilla (vanillamozilla) said : 		#4

Thank you for the bug report location. After a bit of scrutiny, I think you might be right, and I'll try it. Note that this isn't a support request. I'm merely trying to get the web pages fixed.

"You again are mixing up package names and PPA names."

OK, so I did. It's a typo.

'"sudo apt-get install package-name" isn't the only possibility to install packages from a PPA.'

No it isn't, but the point is that the PPA pages do not give complete instructions on how to install. The instruction stops before the last, essential step.