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Accepted
Lorin Hochstein
Asked: 2012-07-07 08:18:05 +0800 CST

Why does add-apt-repository fail to add source repositories?

  • 772

add-apt-repository throws an error if I try to add a source repository:

This works:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://dl.ajaxplorer.info/repos/apt squeeze main'

This fails with an error:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb-src http://dl.ajaxplorer.info/repos/apt squeeze main'
Error: 'deb-src http://dl.ajaxplorer.info/repos/apt squeeze main' invalid

Leaving off the quotes doesn't help:

sudo add-apt-repository deb-src http://dl.ajaxplorer.info/repos/apt squeeze main
Error: need a repository as argument
apt

2 Answers

  1. If you want to add your repo as source repo as well you have to put the -s flag in the command line:

    sudo add-apt-repository -s 'deb http://dl.ajaxplorer.info/repos/apt squeeze main'

    And thats all.

    This will add:

    deb http://dl.ajax...

    and

    deb-src http://dl.ajax...

    as well.

    • 16
  2. Best Answer

    The man page for apt-add-repository says (emphasis added):

    REPOSITORY can be either a line that can be added directly to sources.list(5), or ...

    In the first form, REPOSITORY will just be appended to /etc/apt/sources.list.

    Now, while deb-src is a legal type for sources.list and you may wish to file a bug, it appears that this will do the job just as well, since GPG keys are only downloaded for PPAs:

    sudo sh -c "echo deb-src http://dl.ajaxplorer.info/repos/apt squeeze main \ >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
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