Enabling Extra Repositories

Why enable extra repositories?

Repositories contain software. Extra repositories give you extra software. Some people like that. So this is a guide to enabling extra repositories in Ubuntu. This is a one-time setup. You will not have to do this every time you want to install software.

After you've enabled extra repositories, if you need help installing software, check out this page.

Process to enable extra repositories

Go to System > Administration > Software Sources, and enter your password when prompted.

In the Ubuntu Software tab, all the main, universe, restricted, and multiverse sources should already be checked (or ticked). You may just want to double-check that they are. In most cases, you will not need the source code or CD-ROM/DVD sources.

You should also choose to download from your country's server in the Download from section. This puts a little less strain on the main Canonical servers.

Next, click on the Other Software tab and click Add

In the APT line paste in

deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free

if you're using Ubuntu 10.04.

For Ubuntu 9.10, you should substitute karmic for lucid
For Ubuntu 9.04, you should substitute jaunty for lucid
For Ubuntu 8.04, you should substitute hardy for lucid

Then click Add Source

Click the Close button (next to Revert at the lower-right-hand corner). You'll be prompted to Reload. Go ahead and do so.

Some information will then be downloaded letting your Ubuntu installation know what new software is available for installation.

You will get an error message saying that the public key isn't available for the Medibuntu repositories. That's okay. We're about to fix that.

Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager

When Synaptic Package Manager opens, click on Search at the top-right corner and when the Find dialogue box appears, search for the word medibuntu and then click Search.

When you find the medibuntu-keyring package in the results, double-click it. Then click Mark again to confirm.

Then click Apply and Apply again to confirm.

Once the keyring is installed, you're all set to install some software.

More about repositories

So what are all of these different repositories anyway? Ubuntu Linux has a commitment to open source software, and so for mainly philosophical (and secondarily sometimes legal) reasons, it doesn't include a lot of proprietary software by default. The Ubuntu development team also can offer full support for only the official Ubuntu repositories (Main and Restricted).

You can read on the Ubuntu website more in-depth descriptions of the different types of repositories. Here's a quick low-down, though:

Main: Freely licensed software that's officially supported.
Restricted: Not exactly freely licensed software that is pretty essential to getting a lot of popular configurations working.
Universe: A lot of freely licensed software that's packaged by the community and not officially supported.
Multiverse: Not freely licensed software, also put together by the Ubuntu community and not officially supported.
Medibuntu: Software not included in the other repositories for various reasons.

There is also a volunteer group that puts together a lot of .deb packages for software not in the repositories or of newer versions than are currently in the repositories. Their software can be found at GetDeb.