apt should be able to search ppa packages in launchpad

[Richard Harding]

Binary package hint: apt

Wishlist:
As a provider of gnome-do (https://edge.launchpad.net/gc) via a ppa in LP it would be awesome if users could do
apt-cache search gnome-do

and apt would search LP for packages once the main..universe came up empty. Then if users chose to install it apt could auto-add the ppa repository and download the package for the user.

[Greg Grossmeier (greg.grossmeier)]

This would be a nice feature. Setting to wishlist.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

apt-cache searches the *cache*, not some remote online database

[Craig Maloney (craig-decafbad)]

Correct, that's how it works now, but it would be nice (hence, why this bug was marked as a wishlist) if it (or some other tool) would be able to search remote PPAs.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

It's just not useful in APT. Software Center could probably get something like this, though.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Thanks for the suggestion, but we aren't going to do this. The reason is that PPAs are for software development and testing and have no oversight for safety. If you find a PPA, it should be because either you created it yourself, or someone you trust told you about it.

If you want to publish an application outside of the Ubuntu archive, that's what <https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com/> is for.