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Anyone tried using PPAs on Debian?

  • Onyx
    BINNED

    Prompted by another Ubuntu semi-discussion I went googling again after many a month and...

    How To Add Launchpad PPAs In Debian Via `add-apt-repository` Command

    How To Add Launchpad PPAs In Debian Via `add-apt-repository` Command

    How To Add Launchpad PPAs In Debian Via `add-apt-repository` Command ~ Ubuntu / Linux blog

    Anyone here tried this? Any system blowups? I'd probably use LMDE but I don't have any big qualms over adding jessie repositiories as needed.

    This is probably a shot in the dark and I'll just have to try to break a VM or two first, but if anyone here tried it do let me know.

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  • C

    I wouldn't do it, unless the dependencies for the package you want are very minimal, and you can tolerate them not working if the PPA updates to a different libc.

    Can you do a source install? If so, you might be better off spending an hour hacking a configuration management program (salt, puppet, whatever) to script your configuration instead of hacking on apt for an hour.

    1 Onyx 1 Reply
  • Onyx
    BINNED

    @Captain said:

    Can you do a source install?

    I guess? I mean, I don't use that many PPAs anymore really, but the stuff I do use seems to have a pretty hefty dependency list, which is mostly why I don't just compile from source.

    Also, apt-get sources -b works reliably, apparently. It still requires dependencies but at least I can manage stuff using aptitude later on instead of relying on uninstall scripts...

    0 C 1 Reply
  • C

    Yeah, apt-get sources solves some problems you could run into (i.e., at least you know you'll be building against the libraries on your system), but not all of them (the package might depend on a Ubuntu-only core package)

    None of your options are really all that fun.

    I'd personally still go the configuration management route and not worry about uninstalls. Disk space is really cheap, most binaries are fairly small, you can make cross-platform reproducible builds if you want, etc.

    0 Onyx E 2 Replies
  • Onyx
    BINNED

    @Captain said:

    the package might depend on a Ubuntu-only core package

    Don't think I'd be hitting that, honestly. I don't download any Ubuntu-specific stuff. It's mostly themes, some media applications and some projects I'm following the progress of so I usually want to download nightlies instead of latest stable and the simplest way to do that is PPAs.

    @Captain said:

    I'd personally still go the configuration management route and not worry about uninstalls. Disk space is really cheap, most binaries are fairly small, you can make cross-platform reproducible builds if you want, etc.

    Well, this is for my personal machine, not some server setup I'll be replicating. And the main reason for PPAs is laziness, really. While all the stuff you mentioned is nice, it's work :P

    1
  • mott555

    I have a couple Ubuntu PPAs on my Kali (Debian variant) laptop. Nothing major though, I don't even recall what tbh.

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  • E

    @Captain said:

    I'd personally still go the configuration management route and not worry about uninstalls. Disk space is really cheap, most binaries are fairly small, you can make cross-platform reproducible builds if you want, etc.
    Uninstalls aren't just about disk space.

    I think the usual *nix way of dumping everything into the same set of directories is absolutely bonkers for non-package-manager stuff, but if you're not going the package manager route that usually just means compile with --prefix=/opt/thing anyway.

    Anyway, I've used PPAs a couple of times, e.g. to install GCC 4.9 on Ubuntu 14.04. For that I added the PPA, installed GCC, and removed the PPA so it can't conflict with other stuff.

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  • wft

    Mostly, you are asking for trouble when you use them.

    You can, however, use PPAs as deb-src sources, and build packages on your own against Debian. This is what actually works most of the time.

    3 Onyx 1 Reply
  • Onyx
    BINNED

    @wft said:

    You can, however, use PPAs as deb-src sources, and build packages on your own against Debian. This is what actually works most of the time.

    I think that might be the most sane option after all, yeah. I think I'll go rummage through my system, see what PPAs I use at the moment and try them in a VM, see what starts burning.

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  • Onyx
    BINNED

    Well...

    Let's see how badly I can screw it up :P

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  • Onyx
    BINNED

    Ok, Google you're useless... is there any way to get apt-get or aptitude to rebuild the package when an update is available, or will I have to do it manually?

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  • Onyx
    BINNED

    Update:

    Added a few PPAs into my VM. Wine is the only one that failed a straightforward install. AFAIK packages are available for Debian, I'll just have to check for updates myself if I care I guess.

    Numix theme was fine (expected, it's just icons and gtk themes), Otter browser works (once I added jessie repos, wheezy has Qt 5.1 only, jessie provides 5.3 [5.2+ required]), KeePass2 plugins works as well.

    Poking through other PPAs I have there's nothing else I can't do without / was added for a quick test so I'm calling it feasible.

    Now, can I be arsed to do the reinstall today...

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  • Matches

    Only ppa i use is for mono complete to get the newest version.

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