Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to easily add PPAs, search a package in all Launchpad PPAs, remove duplicate PPAs (only works with separate .list files), backup PPAs and other PPA-related tasks. Check out the Launchpad page for a complete features list.
Y PPA Manager 0.0.7.5 has just been released, the new version adding quicklists for Ubuntu 11.04 Unity launcher. That means that you can now right click the Y PPA Manager icon and select to add a PPA, search all the Launchpad PPAs and so on without having to launch the main Y PPA Manager interface.
The new version also comes with a lot of bug fixes like the icon not showing up (sometimes) in the Unity launcher, a bug that caused Y PPA Manager to ask for password multiple times when chaging the settings or using the PPA duplicate removal feature, changed some NotifyOSD icons, the Y PPA Manager icon when seen in Synapse / Kupfer, etc. uses the right font now and many other minor fixes and tweaks.
To take advantage of the new "quicklists" feature, search for Y PPA Manager in Dash, drag and drop the icon on the Unity launcher and then right click the icon.
Install Y PPA Manager
Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it in Ubuntu (9.10, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04) using the commands below:
Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to easily add PPAs, search a package in all Launchpad PPAs, remove duplicate PPAs (only works with separate .list files), backup PPAs and other PPA-related tasks. Check out the Launchpad page for a complete features list.
Y PPA Manager 0.0.7.5 has just been released, the new version adding quicklists for Ubuntu 11.04 Unity launcher. That means that you can now right click the Y PPA Manager icon and select to add a PPA, search all the Launchpad PPAs and so on without having to launch the main Y PPA Manager interface.
The new version also comes with a lot of bug fixes like the icon not showing up (sometimes) in the Unity launcher, a bug that caused Y PPA Manager to ask for password multiple times when chaging the settings or using the PPA duplicate removal feature, changed some NotifyOSD icons, the Y PPA Manager icon when seen in Synapse / Kupfer, etc. uses the right font now and many other minor fixes and tweaks.
To take advantage of the new "quicklists" feature, search for Y PPA Manager in Dash, drag and drop the icon on the Unity launcher and then right click the icon.
Install Y PPA Manager
Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it in Ubuntu (9.10, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04) using the commands below:
Daniel Holbach maintains a daily builds PPA for a project called "Ubuntu Packaging Guide" which aims to provide a set of articles for working with debian packages and Launchpad, uploading your GPG key to Launchpad (required to create a PPA), fixing bugs, getting the code via BZR, working with a PPA and so on. The guide is in its early stages (currently version 0.1.0) so it's not complete but it's already quite useful.
The guide is not meant to replace the Debian documentation but to provide Ubuntu-specific instructions:
The Ubuntu Packaging Guide is a set of articles that should help you to get involved with packaging and development of Ubuntu. It's not meant to replace other great documentation like the Debian New Maintainer's Guide or the Debian policy, but serve as a starting point with easy and simple to understand articles.
The package provides PDF, Epub and single / multiple HTML files but to get these you'll need to either add the PPA or download the .deb.
The PPA currently provides Ubuntu Packaging Guide packages for Ubuntu 11.04 only but it might get packages for older Ubuntu versions too (there was some bug which prevented the packages from building on older Ubuntu versions and then the packages were deleted). Add the PPA and install Ubuntu Packaging Guide in Ubuntu 11.04 using the following commands:
If you're not using Ubuntu 11.04, you can download the Ubuntu Packaging Guide .deb from HERE. But remember: the guide is constantly updated so to get the latest changes you should add the PPA!
Once installed, open Nautilus and navigate to/usr/share/doc/ubuntu-packaging-guide and you should find a file called "ubuntu-packaging-guide.pdf.gz" - you can open this with Evince. You'll also find a folder called "epub" in which you'll find an epub format for the Ubuntu Packaging guide (look for ubuntu-packaging-guide.epub.gz), as well as two folders which provide the Ubuntu Packaging Guide in HTML format.
I usually update the WebUpd8 PPAs a lot more frequently then I blog about it on WebUpd8 so I though I would be nice for those who use the WebUpd8 PPAs to see a changelog for the recently uploaded packages, easily spot new uploads and so on.
So I've set up WebUpd8 PPAs Status, a small mini-blog (and easy to remember domain: ppa.webupd8.org) where I'll post the changelog for each update or a short description for each new upload.
You can receive the latest WebUpd8 PPAs news via RSS feed (separate RSS feed), like the WebUpd8 PPAs on Facebook and get updates in your home stream (this is a separate Facebook page) and/or via our main Twitter account.
That of course doesn't mean I won't post the major updates here, on WebUpd8, as long as I have the time to do it.
And speaking of the WebUpd8 PPAs: I've updated / uploaded quite a few packages the last couple of days: Victory GTK theme, Faenza Colors and Sublime Text 2 were updated to the latest version, Minty Freshness got a new major update that brings a default dark panel, fixed LibreOffice scrollbars and lots more and also I've uploaded new themes in the WebUpd8 Themes PPA: Fundamental Round 2, Bluebird GTK and Metacity merged as one theme for Gnome and Attack of the Clones GTK theme. Check out the news about all these @ WebUpd8 PPAs Status (usually I would have made a separate post on all of these here on WebUpd8 but I was very very busy today - sorry).
Launchpad-Getkeys is a script (comes packaged in a .deb) that automatically imports all missing GPG keys, even if you're behind a firewall. It was initially created by blackgr @ ubuntuforums but then I decided to completely re-write the script so I can add some options, new features and so on.
How do you know when you have a missing GPG key? Here's an example: when you run "sudo apt-get update", you'll see some errors like this:
[...] Fetched 47.0kB in 6s (7,710B/s) Reading package lists... Done W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net maverick Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY B2DFD25316B94077 W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net maverick Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 1FFD34C9EB13C954 W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net maverick Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY EF4186FE247510BE
Here's a screenshot too:
Further more, if you have missing GPG keys, the update manager will not allow you to update the packages. That's when Launchpad-Getkeys comes in: it can automatically import all these missing GPG keys, thus fix the errors.
Here is a video with Launchpad-getkeys in action to get a better idea on how it works:
Unfortunately my script didn't work if the user was behind a proxy but WebUpd8 reader Saurabh Kumar added proxy support to Launchpad-Getkeys - I couldn't test this (I'm not behind a proxy and even if I'd try to simulate this, I wouldn't know for sure that it works) but I've merged his change into the Launchpad-Getkeys package in the WebUpd8 PPA anyway. Read on to find out how to install and use Launchpad-Getkeys.
Install Launchpad-Getkeys
Launchpad-Getkeys is available for Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04, in the WebUpd8 PPA. Add the PPA and install Launchpad-Getkeys using the following commands:
To automatically import all the missing Launchpad GPG keys, all you have to do is run the following command:
sudo launchpad-getkeys
You can also specify a keyserver and port using the "-k" parameter, like so:
sudo launchpad-getkeys -k SERVER:PORT
This is useful if the port is blocked (but Launchpad-Getkeys uses port 80 by default, unlike the "add-apt-repository" command until Ubuntu 11.04) or if the keyserver is down.
To use Launchpad Getkeys when you're behind a proxy (instructions by Saurabh Kumar - tested by him only), run the following command:
sudo visudo
Then search for this line:
Defaults env_reset
And above it, add this:
Defaults env_keep = "http_proxy"
Then press "Ctrl + O" and "Ctrl + X" if visudo is open using Nano (that's the default behavior).
This will use your "http_proxy" so all you have to do is run:
sudo launchpad-getkeys
If you want, you can specify a different proxy like this:
sudo launchpad-getkeys -p http://SERVER:PORT
Note: There are still things to do. For instance, the script cannot tell if it imported the keys successfully or not and will always report this as successful. I'm still working on solving this.
Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to add, remove, purge, list and search for Launchpad PPAs.
Today I've released a new Y PPA Manager version that adds a new feature: deep search. The regular Y PPA Manager search displays all the PPAs that the Launchpad search returns for the word you search for - that includes PPAs that don't have packages for your Ubuntu version, PPAs that only have the searched keyword in the description as well as PPAs in which that package was available but it has been removed recently.
The new "deep search" works like this:
it scans all the PPAs returned by the Launchpad search and only displays the PPAs that have the exact package you've searched for available at the time you've performed the search
the Y PPA Manager displays the exact version for the package you've searched for as well as the PPA in which that package can be found in one place so you don't have to check the packages in each PPA to know the version of the packages returned by the search
"deep search" will only return packages available for your Ubuntu version (or whatever version you've specified in the config file)
Please note that the "deep search", just like the regular search makes use of the Launchpad PPA search so if Launchpad doesn't find a certain PPA, Y PPA Manager won't list it either. There's nothing I can do about this.
But enough talk. Here is a screenshot with an example Y PPA Manager deep search results for "nautilus":
As you can see, the old regular search actions are still available: you can add the PPA, perform a new search or list the packages in a PPA to get a better idea of what's inside that PPA:
Because of the way the "deep search" works, it takes more then a regular search to complete so you may still use the regular search for quicker results. Also, you must enter the exact package name when using the "deep search" feature. But of course, the results will be more accurate and it's a lot easier to see the version (no extra clicks required) using the deep search.
Install Y PPA Manager
Try it for yourself! Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it in Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty (also works in Linux Mint) using the following commands:
Oh, there's one more feature I've implemented a while back but I forgot to tell you about it: when adding a PPA using Y PPA Manager, the GPG key is imported on port 80 so if you're behind a firewall you won't get GPG key errors anymore (this only works for the new PPAs you add - for the already added PPAs, use Lauchpad Getkeys)!
When adding a PPA in Ubuntu, the GPG key is imported using port 11371. If this port is blocked (by your ISP, Firewall) the GPG key import fails so you'll get lots of errors when running an update and also, the Update Manager doesn't install any available updates. But this will finally be fixed starting with Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal - an update to software-propreties notes that port 80 will be used by default instead of 11371 for getting the GPG keys.
This post is just a short summary of some updated packages in the WebUpd8 PPAs.
Minitube
Minitube stopped working yesterday due to some changes to the YouTube website. The update broke all applications for playing / downloading YouTube videos, but luckily Minitube has been updated (version 1.3) to include a fix. The new version also comes with a new icon and is available as always in the main WebUpd8 PPA, for Ubuntu Lucid and Maverick:
Unfortunately this version also comes with a regression: the Linux version has lost its seeking functionality. Hopefully it will be re-added in a future version.
gThumb
I've also updated gThumb (2.12.1) which is now in sync with Debian unstable. This is not a new version of the application but a new version of the packaging which fixes some pretty important bugs. As usual, gThumb is available both in the WebUpd8 gThumb PPA and in the main WebUpd8 PPA.
Late last night I've updated Launchpad Getkeys to work with non-English Ubuntu. Initially, the script only worked if you had installed Ubuntu in English.
Unfortunately the script does not work if you need a proxy.
Dropbox Share
Dropbox Share has been updated to use "dropbox-index.html" instead of "index.html" file name when sharing a folder (an .html file is created when sharing a folder so you can easily navigate all the subfolders in a web browser). The new version also removes these dropbox-index.html files automatically when unsharing a folder (and when the script notices you've removed the link from the Dropbox Public folder).
The Launchpad API was updated yesterday, finally bringing PPA statistics. For now, the stats can only be accessed by using a Python script, but they will probably be implemented on the actual website soon, especially since Mark Shuttleworth is also interested in these stats. He actually posted a comment on Launchpad, asking for a "heat" metric for PPAs:
5 flames: top 1% PPA in the past 6 months 4 flames: top 10% 3 flames: top 25% 2 flames: top 50% 1 flame: top 75% damp squib: less.
Just count all downloads across all archs and releases equally, but only count them for the latest version of any package in there, so you can't fudge it by rapid-fire publishing.
The PPA usage statistics data has not been updated yet - it has a lot of catching up to do so you can't see any real stats for now, but for fun, I've created a simple python script (actually just modified some of the examples posted @ Launchpad as I don't know Python) to get the download statistics for a PPA.
To use, download the script and modify it with the PPA you want to get stats for, install python-launchpadlib:
sudo apt-get install python-launchpadlib
And run the script:
python ppastats.py
Remember: the PPA usage data is not ready yet so the script may return very few to 0 downloads for most packages in a PPA.
If you are behind a firewall (and port 11371 is closed), you get an error each time you add a PPA:
Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 1970E5148200CA418348886341FDF8A2B455BEF0 gpg: requesting key B455BEF0 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com ?: keyserver.ubuntu.com: Connection timed out gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 7: couldn't connect: Connection timed out gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found. gpg: Total number processed: 0
Further more, you get errors when running "sudo apt-get update", the Update Manager refuses to upgrade packages and so on.
Do you remember Launchpad-Getkeys - a script that automatically imports all missing GPG keys? Well, if you're behind a firewall, you'll be glad to know that Launchpad-Getkeys now works on port 80 by default so it should finally fix the missing GPG keys issue. I've completely rewritten the script (which was initially posted by blackgr @ ubuntuforums) to only imports the missing GPG keys (it used to import all the keys each time you ran it, even if you only had one missing key). In the new version I've also added an option to use a different keyserver (use: -k SERVER:PORT).
Install and use Launchpad-Getkeys
To install the package in Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty, use the following commands:
Then, to import all the missing GPG keys, run the following command:
sudo launchpad-getkeys
That's it! Now run "sudo apt-get update" and you shouldn't get any errors about missing GPG keys anymore (unless the keyserver is down).
This feature (but further tweaked) will be implemented in a future Y PPA Manager version.
Update: the script didn't work if you didn't use Ubuntu in English. This should be fixed in the latest version (0.2.2) which I've just uploaded to the PPA.
Update 2: if you're behind a proxy (not firewall) and Launchpad Getkeys doesn't work for you, try this modified Launchpad-Getkeys (by saurabhk).
Today I've released a new version which fixes some bugs and brings Linux Mint support (thanks to Matthew Markell for the help!) for all the Y PPA Manager tools.
If you didn't try Y PPA Manager yet, here is a video I've recorded, demoing the PPA search feature (which can list the packages - including their versions in a PPA, download .debs from a PPA and so on):
Install Y PPA Manager in Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it using the following commands (available for Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty and Linux Mint: Helena, Isadora and Julia):
