2

How the question raised in my mind

Today I was looking for a new app store to install apps from, I couldn't find any good app store but found an app called "app grid". It was looking promising.

Following this answer, I tried to add the PPA of the appgrid, unfortunately, there was no release file for the PPA.

So, I was forced to remove it but before removing I tried to mess with it for a bit.

I went to /etc/apt/sources.list.d and looked for appgrid. I found that this was the file from where the PPA works.

It looked like -

some.URL impish 
# some.URL impish foobar

I changed the file to -

some.URL focal
# some.URL focal foo bar

Now, when I ran sudo apt update there were no errors!
I am kind of confused as there were no errors!

Then I thought everything is working

So I ran

sudo apt-get install appgrid

And it worked :)

Question

Now, Is everything fine? Or should I remove appgrid? Can I do it in every case? Am I having the focal package now? Was there some other way to install appgrid?

In one sentence:

What possible errors will be there if I change the codename in a PPA list?

OS details

Here is the output of screenfetch


                          ./+o+-       unknown@linux
                  yyyyy- -yyyyyy+      OS: Ubuntu 21.10 impish
               ://+//////-yyyyyyo      Kernel: x86_64 Linux 5.13.0-21-generic
           .++ .:/++++++/-.+sss/`      Uptime: 25m
         .:++o:  /++++++++/:--:/-      Packages: 2223
        o:+o+:++.`..```.-/oo+++++/     Shell: bash 5.1.8
       .:+o:+o/.          `+sssoo+/    Resolution: 2560x1600
  .++/+:+oo+o:`             /sssooo.   DE: GNOME 40.0
 /+++//+:`oo+o               /::--:.   WM: Mutter
 \+/+o+++`o++o               ++////.   WM Theme: Adwaita
  .++.o+++oo+:`             /dddhhh.   GTK Theme: Orchis-light [GTK2/3]
       .+.o+oo:.          `oddhhhh+    Icon Theme: Papirus
        \+.++o+o``-````.:ohdhhhhh+     Font: Ubuntu 11
         `:o+++ `ohhhhhhhhyo++os:      Disk: 55G / 916G (7%) (SSD) 
           .o:`.syhhhhhhh/.oo++o`      CPU:  AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 x 12
               /osyyyyyyo++ooo+++/     GPU: AMD Radeon™ Graphics
                   ````` +oo+++o\:     RAM:  2045 / 16384 MB
                          `oo++.

I don't think that this question is opinion based as it asks for what can be errors

There is no error till now, appgrid is working fine

Error404
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1 Answers1

6

If the program works, and apt does not throw an error while installing other programs, then everything is fine.

However, in general, there can be complex dependency issues with some repositories.

For some general advice, see the comment by @sudodus.

Suppose, the program (say, A) you install also installs a dependency, B, which is available in the PPA. However, suppose you have another package (C) installed, which has a conflicting library with B (but the version of C in 20.04 did not have this conflicting library). Then, apt would need to remove C to install A. Further suppose that the GNOME Shell depends on C. Then, while installing program A, apt will ask you if you want to remove C, gnome-shell, along with a bunch of things. If you agree without carefully reading, you will be greeted with a black screen after the next reboot.

Such things actually happen. Someone carelessly tried to install Steam in Pop OS, which removed the GUI.

I can see in the package details that the same package is copied over between different versions of Ubuntu, so it should work fine as long as all the dependencies are available. I have emailed the maintainer to create a package for Hirsute and Impish.

However, it would be safer to simply download and install the .deb package than adding the focal repository (just in case there are any future revisions, which works in focal, but causes dependency issues in impish).

Archisman Panigrahi
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