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I just added a ppa like so:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases

Now, how do I get to see which packages this PPA contains?

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2 Answers 2

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20

I'm sure there is many ways to do this - since you have added the PPA, the package details exist in /var/lib/apt/lists

Thus for your example ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases

substitute / for an _ and remove the prefix ppa: i.e. stebbins_handbrake-releases

Then just use this repositoryname in the following command line entry:

cat /var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_[repositoryname]_*_Packages | grep "Package:" | sort | uniq

i.e.

cat /var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_stebbins_handbrake-releases_*_Packages | grep "Package:" | sort | uniq

On newer versions of Debian the Packages file is LZ4 compressed, so you'll need to apt-get install liblz4-tool and then insert an lz4cat step into your pipeline to decompress it:

lz4cat /var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_stebbins_handbrake-releases_*_Packages | grep "Package:" | sort | uniq

This will list the contents:

Package: handbrake-cli
Package: handbrake-gtk
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5
  • You can shorten this slightly by rearranging to grep "Package:" /var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_..._Packages | sort -u
    – Oli ♦
    Oct 18, 2012 at 0:44
  • This works perfect (if one remembers to do 'sudo apt-get update' after adding the PPA...)
    – user96331
    Oct 18, 2012 at 1:43
  • You can also go to Launchpad to see the information. Assume first that the ppa: example you gave is in the form: ppa:team/archivename. The corresponding LaunchPad link would be https://launchpad.net/~team/+archive/archivename.
    – Thomas Ward ♦
    Oct 18, 2012 at 2:35
  • In addition to what Oli said, it'd be better to use the -h flag in grep -h 'Package:' /var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_*_Packages to print just the packages without printing the filename itself.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Jun 23, 2017 at 19:34
  • 2
    On newer versions of Debian the Packages file is LZ4 compressed, so you'll need to apt-get install liblz4-tool and then insert an lz4cat -d step into your pipeline to decompress it.
    – David Moles
    Jun 12, 2019 at 22:55
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To see the content of a ppa you can use Y PPA Manager. Install it by running the following in a terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

When the application is started, click on Manage PPA's:

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Select the PPA you want to see the content of:

enter image description here

And finally click on "list packages" to see all packages provided by the given PPA.

Hopefully this will help.

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