This quick tutorial shows you how to quickly fix the “add-apt-repository command not found” error on Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions.
One of the many ways to install software on Ubuntu or Debian is to use a PPA (Personal Package Archive).
If you want to add a new PPA repository, you’ll have to use the add-apt-repository command in the following fashion:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:some/ppaIn Debian, elementary OS and
sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found
Let’s see how to fix this annoying error.
Fix add-apt-repository: command not found error
The error is simple. The package add-apt-repository is not installed on your system.
But if you try to use sudo apt-get install add-apt-repository, it won’t work.
It’s because the
So open a terminal and use this command:
sudo apt-get install software-properties-commonThe command’s output will be something like this:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
software-properties-common
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 9,912 B of archives.
After this operation, 197 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 software-properties-common all 0.96.24.32.5 [9,912 B]
Fetched 9,912 B in 2s (5,685 B/s)
Selecting previously unselected package software-properties-common.
(Reading database ... 265950 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../software-properties-common_0.96.24.32.5_all.deb ...
Unpacking software-properties-common (0.96.24.32.5) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.2-1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up software-properties-common (0.96.24.32.5) ...Once you’ve installed software-properties-common, you should update the system using this command:
sudo apt-get updateYou can now comfortably use add-apt-repository or apt-add-repository commands to add PPAs.
Note: If you see an error saying software-properties-common command not found, you should run sudo apt-get update and then try to install it again.
I hope this quick tip helped you fix the “add-apt-repository: command not found”
If you’re still facing issues with PPAs, let me know in the comments section. Additional suggestions, questions or a quick word of thanks are always welcome.
Thank you!! this was doing my head in, your instructions helped massively and they worked! :-)
Happy to be of help, Jill.
So I am using a live Ubuntu USB to do some software recovery. I tried the install software-properties-common option and it says it is already installed but is set to manually installed. Any recommendations for this issue?
The message means that the package in question is installed explicitly, not as a dependency on another package. Usually, packages like software-properties-common are installed as a dependency of other package. When you remove the main package, these dependency packages are also removed. Since you chose to manually install it, now it won’t get removed automatically.
After I run this script “sudo apt-get install software-properties-common”.
here is the result:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
software-properties-common is already the newest version (2.0.7).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 399 not upgraded.
Then run “sudo apt-get update”
Here’s the result:
Hit:1 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit:3 https://linux.teamviewer.com/deb stable InRelease
Ign:4 http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa InRelease
Hit:5 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:6 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:7 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease
Hit:8 http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa Release
Hit:9 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease
Hit:11 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease
Reading package lists… Done
Then I am trying to run “sudo add-apt-repository “deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release; echo “$UBUNTU_CODENAME”) stable”
But still I am having this issue:
sudo add-apt-repository: command not found
Can you please help me about this?. I am new in linux I am really sorry.
Are you trying to install Docker on Linux Mint?
how to fix apt-add repository error in Zorin OS-16
[email protected]:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
^CTraceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/add-apt-repository”, line 137, in
shortcut = shortcut_handler(line)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py”, line 884, in shortcut_handler
ret = factory(shortcut)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 470, in shortcut_handler
return PPAShortcutHandler(shortcut)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 426, in __init__
info = get_ppa_info(self.shortcut)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 380, in get_ppa_info
ret = get_ppa_info_from_lp(user, ppa)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 110, in get_ppa_info_from_lp
return get_info_from_lp(lp_url)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 104, in get_info_from_lp
return get_info_from_https(lp_url, True)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 96, in get_info_from_https
data = func(lp_url=url, accept_json=accept_json, retry_delays=retry_delays)
File “/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py”, line 138, in _get_https_content_py3
lp_page = urllib.request.urlopen(request,
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/urllib/request.py”, line 222, in urlopen
return opener.open(url, data, timeout)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/urllib/request.py”, line 525, in open
response = self._open(req, data)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/urllib/request.py”, line 542, in _open
result = self._call_chain(self.handle_open, protocol, protocol +
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/urllib/request.py”, line 502, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/urllib/request.py”, line 1397, in https_open
return self.do_open(http.client.HTTPSConnection, req,
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/urllib/request.py”, line 1354, in do_open
h.request(req.get_method(), req.selector, req.data, headers,
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/http/client.py”, line 1252, in request
self._send_request(method, url, body, headers, encode_chunked)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/http/client.py”, line 1298, in _send_request
self.endheaders(body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/http/client.py”, line 1247, in endheaders
self._send_output(message_body, encode_chunked=encode_chunked)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/http/client.py”, line 1007, in _send_output
self.send(msg)
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/http/client.py”, line 947, in send
self.connect()
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/http/client.py”, line 1421, in connect
self.sock = self._context.wrap_socket(self.sock,
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/ssl.py”, line 500, in wrap_socket
return self.sslsocket_class._create(
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/ssl.py”, line 1040, in _create
self.do_handshake()
File “/usr/lib/python3.8/ssl.py”, line 1309, in do_handshake
self._sslobj.do_handshake()
KeyboardInterrupt
Is this the entire error message? It doesn’t specify any error which could be further investigated.