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So I'm on a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04 on an HP HDX 16 Laptop and have a few questions regarding installing software.

First thing I did was sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

So I've used Linux for about 3 years and usually open up a terminal windows and run sudo apt-get install, yum install, or pacman -S to install packages. But I've just come back from 4 months of living in Windows 7 and 8.1 due to work and school, and now I'm back on Linux, specifically Ubuntu. So I've come to rely on a set of tools namely, sublime text 3, brackets, Visual Studio, and Netbeans. Also Apache but I've built and compiled Apache from source and find ubuntu package much more convenient. But as for the other editors with the exception of Netbeans and VS (though I'm definitely going give VS Code a try), come in .deb packages which i can easily run. I was wondering if this any better or worse than adding PPA from say webupd8team and installing via apt-get.

I feel like I'm getting the latest versions by installing them directly from the website, are there any problems in the long run by doing this way. Also, I use Java for school work and was wondering if it would be ok to install the Java8 + Netbeans bundle from Oracle, it comes an executable installer. As far as Java being installed properly on my machine

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  • I remember being distinctly annoyed by the webupd8 PPA for sublime text. Their packages don't actually contain the sublime text stuff - those packages download them while installation. This might have been justified in the ST2 days, but ST3 has proper packages provided by ST themselves - all they are missing is a proper repo or PPA.
    – muru
    May 23, 2015 at 14:06

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Indeed there is no specific answer. The answer would bw related to each package unique. The master guidlune to your choice is what you care about.

Installing from Ubuntu main repositories ensure you security, stability but with some versions, since to ensure the policies put by ubuntu packaging system would take some time.

So as a guidline, don't add third party repositories unless you really need it. So if old versions work for you then you shouldn't add that third party repositories. Another major consequence better to choose some known and trusted third party repositories if you need them, so if you don' t the needed third party repositories it's better to download only the .deb if available and not adding that repo

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Installing from the website itself gives you the latest updates of that particular software. Software being in PPAs generally take time to be tested and modified. I generally download the .deb file from the website only.

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    you will not get any security update for packages downloaded from Internet. If it is some thing sensitive (for example bash) then it is better to use from repo.
    – sourav c.
    May 23, 2015 at 14:19
  • But again, few softwares for example Chrome has the feature of adding its update lines with the default ubuntu update system. I prompts for permissions and later on update itself with rest of the applications. May 23, 2015 at 16:53

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