Ubuntu

Revision 6 as of 2005-07-06 10:42:35

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How to add repositories to your sources.list

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This page will discuss how to add other [:Repositories: repositories] to your /etc/apt/sources.list. It will also show how to uncomment universe.

Index

  • Uncommenting Universe
  • Using Synaptic
  • Using Terminal
  • Adding outside repositories
  • Adding outside repositories using Synaptic
  • Adding outside repositories using a Terminal

Uncommenting Universe

Using Synaptic

To uncomment the universe repository, follow these instructions.

Start Synaptic Package Manager from the Computer, System Configuration menu

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In Synaptic, choose the Repositories item in the Settings menu

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A list of repositories is shown. Use the checkboxes (if checkboxes aren't shown, tick the 'show disabled sources' under settings) in the first column enable or disable a repository. Universe is now enabled.

Save the changes and close the window by clicking OK.

Update the list of available packages with Reload in the main window.

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Once the package list has been updated, packages from universe can be installed.


Using Terminal


Alternatively, use a terminal and command line tools to enable universe. Start Terminal from Applications, System Tools in the menubar.

Type the following command:

   bash:~$ sudo nano -w /etc/apt/sources.list

The texteditor nano starts and opens the configuration file for repositories. Remove the comment "#" marks from the start of lines that look like this:

   #deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
   #deb-src ftp://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe

then add the word multiverse making them look like this:

   deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe multiverse
   deb-src ftp://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe multiverse

Afterwards, update the package list with the following command:

   bash:~$ sudo apt-get update

Adding outside repositories

Sometimes other users will make repositories for packages they have made. It is real easy to add these repositories to the system package manager.

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Note: BE CAREFUL doing this, some outside packages could break your Ubuntu installation.

For a list of outside repositories see BreakMyUbuntu.

Adding outside repositories using Synaptic

As shown in the Using Synaptic screenshot above, start Synaptic Package Manager from the Computer menu, System Configuration item. Once Synaptic has launched, choose the Settings menu, [Repositories] item.

You now see a window with a list of repositories. Push the button New to add a repository. Type in the information about the repositories in the dropdown menu and three textfields according to the following examples.

Normally you find websites providing information about a repository in a form like the following example:

   deb http://www.grawert.net/ubuntu/ warty universe

This line provides the information for the Synaptic fields.

* deb means it is a binary, so use the drop-down list to choose binary. Normally this is the default setting.

* http://www.grawert.net/ubuntu/ is the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), which means in this case the location.

* warty is the release name.

* universe is the section name.

Sometimes the repository line has less information though, as shown in the next example.

   deb http://www.getsweaaa.com/~tseng/ubuntu/debs ./ 

The first two fields (deb and URI) are clearly similar to the first example above. However, the release-name is "./" so just put this (without the quotes) in the release field of Synaptic. It looks weird, but simply specifies the release as being whatever is in the directory given by the URI. Furthermore, there is no section information so just leave that text field blnk in your Synaptic entry.

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Note: Only the section information is optional, and then only with respect to the repository-maintainer. If there is section information, it must be specifed in Synaptic. It cannot be left blank.

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Note: If you make a mistake with the syntax in the fields you will get an error when you click the OK button in Synaptic. One cause is putting a trailing slash at the end of the URI. Also beware of leaving whitespaces at the beginning/end of the fields.

Save the changes and close the window by pushing on OK.

Update the list of avaible packages with Reload in the main window. After downloading the packages list from the repositories you can install packages from universe.

Adding outside repositories using the Terminal

Alternatively, use a terminal and command line tools to enable other repositories. Start Terminal from Applications, System Tools in the menubar.

Type in the command line:

This example uses tseng's repository.

   bash:~$ echo deb http://www.getsweaaa.com/~tseng/ubuntu/debs ./ | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

You would just substitute the deb http://www.getsweaaa.com/~tseng/ubuntu/debs ./ with any other outside repositories name.