How to enable PPA in elementary OS Loki

Elementary OS team has decided to stay away from third-party PPAs. Although it is a very good direction to maintain a clean and unbroken operating system and applications update, it can be a disadvantage to those who know what they are doing. eOS Loki has cool new AppCenter using which applications install is a breeze, but it comes with a price of not having the ability to install thousands of software that don’t belong there and needs a third-party repository sources (PPAs). Traditionally, we used to use apt get command to install additional software.

When you try to add repositories Loki will throw out error ‘sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found’. However, it is still possible to enable and add PPAs so that you can install applications like you used to do. Let’s get started.

Enable PPA in elementary OS Loki

First thing to do is to update and upgrade. Run the following commands one at a time.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

Next, launch terminal and type the following command:

sudo apt install software-properties-common

That’s it! You should now be able to install PPAs on Loki using sudo apt get command.

Still problem with apt-get update?

If you are still having problem to run apt-get update, you may have to reinstall AppCenter.

Launch Terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt purge appcenter

sudo apt install appcenter

sudo apt update

Hope that works!