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Purging redundant ppa's

Asked by John Rose

A Launchpad Ubuntu ppa is currently being used for certain packages, either because the packages are not available from the standard Ubuntu repos or because the ppa's packages are better (in the sense that they are higher versions which have often had bugs removed or have extra functionality) . Ideally, it would be good to know when that ppa is redundant i.e. when the ppa's packages have the same (or higher) versions in the Ubuntu repos. Is there a utility which will do this?

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Why bother, the instaler will install the latest version of the package. As long as the PPA support s your release then it is fine. The PPA may later have a later version of a package. Removing PPAs unless they cause issues or do not support your release doesn't gain you much

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#2

Usually if a PPA uses a higher version of a package , then it will continue to use a higher version than Ubuntu (repo).

How is that ?

A proper maintainer of a PPA should update the packages when a new version is available.
So when a package being updated in main Ubuntu repo it should be already updated at the PPA too.

Don't know if I make it clear.

##HOW TO PURGE a PPA.

Good utility for purging PPAs is ppa-purge.

Install from terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) . Apply command below

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

use

man ppa-purge

for users manual page.

##Example of purging the Gnome Team PPA

sudo ppa-purge ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update

Thanks

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John Rose (johnaaronrose) said : 		#3

AFAIK ppa's are not guaranteed by Canonical. Therefore, if the Ubuntu repos 'catchup' with ppa in regard to version, it seems to me to be a good idea to purge a ppa.

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said : 		#4

Of course are not guaranteed by Canonical . The message is clear

"You can update your system with unsupported packages from this untrusted PPA"

I gave you instructions on how to purge a PPA.

Thanks

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