Personal Package Archives

Personal Package Archives (PPAs) are one of Launchpad’s most popular and exceptional features. Using a PPA you can publish your own software packages that are installable in Ubuntu. They can be based on existing Ubuntu packages or you can create completely new packages of any free software project.

Creating and distributing a package using your PPA is simple:

  1. Create a source package.

  2. Verify that it builds on your own machine.

  3. Upload it to Launchpad, where it will be built and published for the world to see.

  4. Give your PPA’s public archive URL to friends.

Managing PPAs

To install packages from a PPA, add the PPA to your apt sources: add-apt-repository ppa:user/ppa-name

Update the apt package index and install the desired package from the PPA: apt update && apt install <package-name>

To remove a PPA: add-apt-repository --remove ppa:user/ppa-name

Supported Ubuntu Versions

You can build your package against any currently supported version of Ubuntu, including active Long Term Support (LTS) releases and active interim releases. Launchpad automatically manages the build environments for these targets.

For example, this currently includes LTS releases such as Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy), Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble), and Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute), as well as interim versions like Ubuntu 25.10 (Quokka).

When you upload your source package, you specify the exact target distribution codename in your Debian changelog file to dictate which version it will be built for.

Team PPAs

A team can have their own PPA too. This allows a group of developers to collaborate on a set of packages. Anyone in the team can upload to the team PPA, so it is a convenient way for a group to work together on a whole bunch of packages which work together as a set.

Activating your PPA

On your Launchpad profile page, look for an option to “Activate Personal Package Archive”. You will need to accept the terms of service, which basically say that you will only use the free PPA system for free software packages. At this point you can start uploading your source packages immediately. Package builds can be actively monitored from the PPA’s Builds page on Launchpad.

Try the Quick Start Guide for PPAs if you want to learn more!