Ubuntu Wiki

Background

New-comers find adding APT sources rather difficult. It could be done a lot easier.

Example

Adding The Wine Repository Today

The current process of adding an APT source consists of two steps, using a terminal:

• Importing the key:

  • wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

  And adding the repository:

  • sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/gutsy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Which is simple enough for the experienced user. Meanwhile this probably looks rather cryptic to the total newbie.

What can be done?

Filetype

One way to go, is making a filetype which includes both the key and the source. These files could be opened by default and imported by software-properties, like .deb-files are currently opened by default and installed by gdebi.

The best thing is, the current .list files, like the one provided by Wine HQ above, is nearly good enough for this purpose:

The current winehq.list

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt gutsy main #WineHQ - Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon"
deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt gutsy main #WineHQ - Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon"

Possible improved layout

#apt-key: http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt gutsy main #WineHQ - Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon"
deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt gutsy main #WineHQ - Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon"

Remember, the whole point is to make a GUI program, like software-properties, import this file and add the source and apt-key.

The thought behind the # character is to make these files backwards compatible with earlier .list files.

The database way

This could also be done by using current .list files and making a central database for the GPG-keys. Though changing the .list file format to include apt-keys and getting people to use the new file format is probably a better use of resources.

Epilogue

Why this is better? Well, it is a simple thing which makes life with Ubuntu easier, of course.