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I ran

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:noobslab/indicators

to install my-weather-indicator but it requires GTK3 and I don't want to proceed further.

So I'd like to undo that command. I've checked my /etc/apt/source.list but I didn't find any line related to it.

What should I do now?

Olivier
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Sigur
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3 Answers3

90

From Ubuntu's manual pages (man add-apt-repository):

-r, --remove Remove the specified repository

So...

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:noobslab/indicators

This removes it from the repo list in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/.

Depending on what you are doing, BEFORE you run the above command - If an installed package from that repo is newer than the same package in a standard repo, then manually downgrade with ppa-purge:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:noobslab/indicators

For Debian, just delete the .list file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

BanAnanas
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Christopher
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  • Where can I check if it worked? Are there some entries in source.list? – Sigur Jan 08 '13 at 00:34
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    @Sigur Yes! The .list files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. – Christopher Jan 08 '13 at 00:37
  • Your first suggestion returns You are about to add the following PPA to your system:. The second one returns sudo: ppa-purge: command not found. I still have .list in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ – Sigur Jan 08 '13 at 00:44
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    Strangely, I'm on 14.04 and there is no -r nor --remove option for me. – Mikhail Batcer Sep 22 '17 at 07:40
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    The command: sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:noobslab/indicators works perfectly. It's also convenient, as I can recall the previous command of adding the repository just add the -r switch after the command, before the repository name. – Yu Shen Dec 30 '18 at 00:50
  • Why isn't this the accepted answer... – Andrew Mar 23 '20 at 15:00
  • strange, on 18.04 I had to sudo apt-get install ppa-purge – Michael Mar 26 '20 at 20:03
  • also, i don't know if the ppa-purge succeeded or not because it says nothing about removing anything, but complains about an unrelated ppa not having a release file, after which it says Warning: apt-get update failed for some reason – Michael Mar 26 '20 at 20:05
28

add-apt-repository creates a new file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d for ppa repositories. Besides deleting the appropriate file you also should delete the added gpg key:

  1. get the keyid from apt-key list
  2. delete it via apt-key del $ID
Ulrich Dangel
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    Item 1 returns pub 1024R/36FD5529 2010-12-14 uid Launchpad PPA for noobslab. What is its $ID? – Sigur Jan 08 '13 at 00:46
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    @Sigur 36FD5529 is the id, 1024 is the keylength and the rest is the uid – Ulrich Dangel Jan 08 '13 at 00:49
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    It works with del instead of delete. – Sigur Jan 08 '13 at 00:52
  • This above answer is non-working in Debian (which is far superior to Ubuntu). In Debian, you need to edit /etc/apt/sources.list with privileges. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list and then just delete the entries and press ^x to exit and y to save changes. – Wolfpack'08 Nov 11 '22 at 03:49
4

If you want to undo add-apt-repository, having used a format like e.g.

sudo add-apt-repository \
   "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
   $(lsb_release -cs) \
   stable"

Use the output displayed by the following command to find the repository you want to delete 

grep ^ /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*

Example output:

/etc/apt/sources.list:#deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 17.3 _Rosa_ - Release amd64 20151128]/ trusty contrib main non-free /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list:deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu trusty stable ...

In this example /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list would have the repository to undo/remove. Edit the file and remove its line.

T. Webster
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