After adding PPA source for "skippy-xd", the package still cannot be found

Question

After adding PPA source for "skippy-xd", the package still can not be found:

majo@think:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:landronimirc/skippy-xd
[sudo] password for majo:
You are about to add the following PPA to your system:
  Fullscreen composited task-switcher for X11
 Skippy-XD is a program that provides Exposé-like features found on the Mac
 OS X operating system. It is a standalone application for providing a window 
 picker with live previews (including live video) on Linux desktops that run 
 an X server with compositing support. Thus it is not part of the window
 manager, and the compositing is not being used all the time. 

 If you work with many windows, your desktop may begin to get cluttered.  You 
 can use Skippy-XD to quickly and conveniently find the right window that you
 are looking for. It allows you to press a hotkey and see miniature versions 
 of all your active windows at once.

 To use Skippy-XD, you need Xfce (xfwm4) or a NetWM compliant window
 manager (LXDE, Openbox-based window managers, etc.).

 http://code.google.com/p/skippy-xd/
 More info: https://launchpad.net/~landronimirc/+archive/skippy-xd
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it

gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmp1q3041/secring.gpg' created
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmp1q3041/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: requesting key 23A187B2 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: /tmp/tmp1q3041/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 23A187B2: public key "Launchpad PPA for Landronimirc" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1  (RSA: 1)
OK
majo@think:~$ sudo apt-get update
...
Reading package lists... Done
majo@think:~$ sudo apt-get install skippy-xd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package skippy-xd
majo@think:~$ apt-cache search skippy
majo@think:~$ apt-cache search skippy-xd

I am using ubuntu 13.04 with lubuntu-desktop additionally installed on my laptop. I get the same result on my netbook, where I have clean lubuntu 13.04 installed. Downloading the package manually and installing works just fine, though. So it is not a big deal. But I was just wondering why I could not get the PPA working right. Thanks in advance for any advices.

Answer 1

LATEST EDIT: Short answer is: skippy-xd lacks a Build-Depends: dependency on the python package. That's why the PPA's automatic build fails and no package ends up being in the repository.

---

According to the PPA page the builds for raring amd64 and i386 failed february this year. Maybe you want to get in touch with the PPA owner or build the package yourself and see if you can fix it. You should be able to apt-get source skippy-xd and apt-get build-dep skippy-xd since the source packages are available through that PPA.

EDIT: Double checked, there are no binary packages for Raring inside that PPA. Quick hint on how to build yourself:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get build-dep skippy-xd
$ apt-get source skippy-xd
$ cd skippy-xd-0.5.1~hg20111223
$ dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -rfakeroot

Be prepared to see some mess. After all it did not compile on Launchpad compile farm and the PPA owner chose not to care about it.

EDIT2:

I just compiled it successfully on Linux Mint 15 (based on Ubuntu Raring) i386. Checking the build log on launchpad says:

dh build-arch 
   dh_testdir -a
   dh_auto_configure -a
   dh_auto_build -a
make[1]: Entering directory `/build/buildd/skippy-xd-0.5.1~hg20111223'
python configure_environment_header.py
make[1]: python: Command not found
make[1]: *** [environment.h] Error 127
make[1]: Leaving directory `/build/buildd/skippy-xd-0.5.1~hg20111223'
dh_auto_build: make -j1 returned exit code 2
make: *** [build-arch] Error 2
dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules build-arch gave error exit status 2
******************************************************************************
Build finished at 20130207-2027
FAILED [dpkg-buildpackage died]
******************************************************************************

It seems to me a mandatory Build-Dep is missing, which is a common error when the Build-Dep in question is available on the developers machine (python). That's one reason why there are build servers. Sadly the PPA owner did not care to check the build results.

CONCLUSION after the latest EDIT:

Build yourself and install the package by double clicking it with your favorite file browser. Create a bug ticket or contact PPA owner about this issue.

Have fun!!

Answer 2

Do not use the ppa:landronimirc/skippy-xd; even if all the builds were fixed, it is obsolete.

Use instead ppa:landronimirc/skippy-xd-daily, which provides daily builds of most recent development code of Skippy-XD. All the builds should be available as expected.