One of the most interesting innovations that come with the new Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is the integration of the Launchpad PPA repositories. This happens with the inclusion of a new command to the terminal. This command adds new repositories Launchpad application and search and download the PGP key needed to authenticate the packages to install. This command simplifies adding applications and surely is the tool that works behind the Ubuntu Software Center, one of the most important developments of the new Karmic.

For example, we will install Gwibber, a Twitter client for Gnome in our Ubuntu 9.10. Repositories to be included in our sources.list for the stable release of this program are:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gwibber-team/ubuntu intrepid main

In this line, from now on we simply know the path where the repositories are hosted project here Gwibber-team and we build the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwibber-team

When run in a terminal only handles the download and install the PGP key and add a new file in our sources.list.d with the repositories where the packages will download the application.

If add-apt-repository successfully completed we can install the Gwibber as we would always. We update the repositories and install with:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install gwibber

Easy right?

Gwibber will be installed under Applications -> Internet -> microblogging client Gwibber.