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Byte Commander
Asked: 2015-09-18 07:03:33 +0800 CST

Remove PPAs: "add-apt-repository --remove" vs. "rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/???.list"

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According to How can PPAs be removed? there are mainly 3 methods to get rid of a PPA:

  • Use the add-apt-repository command:

    sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:???/???

  • Manually remove the .list file:

    sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/????.list

  • Use additional tools like e.g. ppa-purge... (not topic of this question)

I am curious what the difference between the first and second option is, i.e. is there anything more that add-apt-repository --remove does, compared to just deleting the .list file?

One example I could think of would be GPG keys that were installed together with the PPA. Will add-apt-repository handle and remove them in contrast to just rm-ing the .list file?

Please note that neither removing GPG keys nor using ppa-purge is the topic of this question!

apt

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Both commands remove the PPA, but there is one basic difference:

    sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:???/???

    This command will only delete content of .list file. It will not remove the file itself.

    sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/????.list

    Once you run this command, it will completely remove the PPA file.

    However, in my opinion, it's better to use :

    sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/????.list*

    I generally use the last command with the trailing asterisk (*), because whenever we add any repository it will create two files under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. First one is the .list file and second one is a backup of that, having the extension .list.save.

    same case with command sudo apt-key del ???? and sudo rm /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/file.gpg. whenever we add keys two file created under /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ file.gpg and file.gpg~ when you run command 

    sudo apt-key del ????

    one file file.gpg will be deleted and second one will remain file.gpg~ as it is . However, in my opinion, it's better to use :

    sudo rm /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/file.gpg*
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  2. No, apt-add-repository will not handle the GPG keys, so if you want to remove the keys as well, use rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/???.list and then the GPG Keys from /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/

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