Smashing Tips

Ubuntu users find themselves installing softwares through Ubuntu Software Centre which is a GUI based tool and on the other hand by commands through terminal. While both of the methods are efficient in their way there are users who install software through PPA’s. Now wait, PPA? What is it? In simple words PPA is Personal Package Achieve which includes software sources which are not included in Ubuntu by default. Since, we had to wait for a new update of a software till the next release of Ubuntu, PPA’s solve the problem in which can install software using them and regularly update them.
Now you would know something about PPA. What is a YPPA manager? YPPA Manager is GUI tool for installing PPA’s just the same way you install softwares using Ubuntu Software Centre. Some users always find it convenient to use GUI. So, YPPA Manager is the best choice.

Installing YPPA Manager using terminal

 
To download YPPA manager type the command,
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
Press Enter and enter your root password.
You will be prompted to continue or not. Press Enter to continue.
Wait for the PPA to get added.

Next you should update the software source.

sudo apt-get update

Press Enter and wait for the update to complete.

Now install the software using the command,
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Wait for the installation to complete

Now run YPPA from terminal using the command,
nohup y-ppa-manager &

You are now all set with the installation and now you can install software from PPA’s, view existing PPA’s in your system, search any required PPA, remove the PPA’s and much more.

A Guide through YPPA:

Now that you know how to obtain YPPA through terminal here is small tour through YPPA Manager.

Note: Double click on the item to invoke it

With Add a PPA you can directly add the ppa to the list.
For example, if you would like to add Gnome3 to the ppa type in as,
ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3


With Remove a PPA you can remove any ppa from the repository.

With this item you can view the currently present ppa’s in your system.
You can select any one of the ppa’s present and you can, Update the PPA

You can search for any PPA u need by typing the name of the software you need.
After your search is completed you will get the list of PPA’s based on your search.You can then, Add the selected PPA to your system.

You can manually install the packages by specifying the name of the package in the text box and click on Install.

Under Advanced tab there are 8 menu items each with different purposes which are,

• PPA Purge– This tool is used to downgrade the PPA in your system to the default version which is present in Ubuntu repositories.
• Scan and remove duplicate PPA– This tools helps to search for duplicate PPA and remove them
• Try to import all missing GPG keys– This tool will attempt to fix all missing GPG keys for the PPAs added to your system.
• Try to fix all GPG BADSIG errors– This tools fixes the BADSIG error which may occur during sudo apt-get update.
• Backup repositories- This tool backs up all the PPAs on your computer which exists exist under /etc/apt/sources.list.d. This feature does not back up the GPG keys but its restore feature automatically imports all missing GPG keys and so a GPG keys backup is not required.
• Restore repositories backup- This restores a repositories backup previously done using Y PPA Manager and it automatically imports all missing GPG keys.
• Re-enable working PPAs after Ubuntu upgrade- When you upgrade to a new Ubuntu version, all the PPAs are disabled. This feature checks if the old PPAs have been updated to work with your current Ubuntu version and if they do work, it re-enables them.
• Update release name in working PPAs- This feature allows you to replace the Ubuntu version for all the PPAs on your computer with another Ubuntu version. YPPA Manager checks if the PPAs support the Ubuntu version you want to replace it with, so the PPAs that won’t work with the new version are not updated.

Feedback

YPPA Manager is a very useful and efficient tool for users who need not squeeze their mind to search and install a software that is not available at the software center. Just hit the search or enter the ppa name and install the packages. Hope you would be benefited by this information.