Last updated October 8, 2018 By Abhishek Prakash 3 Comments
This quick tutorial shows you how to quickly fix the “add-apt-repository command not found” error on Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions.
One of the many ways to install software on Ubuntu or Debian is to use PPA (Personal Package Archive).
If you want to add a new PPA repository, you’ll have to use the add-apt-repository command in the following fashion:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:some/ppa
In Debian, elementary OS and sometimes on Ubuntu, you’ll see the error that add-apt-repository command is missing.
sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found
Let’s see how to fix this annoying error.
Fix add-apt-repository: command not found error
The error is simple. The package add-apt-repository is not installed on your system.
But if you try to use sudo apt-get install add-apt-repository, it won’t work.
It’s because add-apt-repository command is under the package software-properties-common and you need to install this package in order to install add-apt-repository.
So, open a terminal and use this command:
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
The command output will be something like this:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
software-properties-common
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 9,912 B of archives.
After this operation, 197 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 software-properties-common all 0.96.24.32.5 [9,912 B]
Fetched 9,912 B in 2s (5,685 B/s)
Selecting previously unselected package software-properties-common.
(Reading database … 265950 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack …/software-properties-common_0.96.24.32.5_all.deb …
Unpacking software-properties-common (0.96.24.32.5) …
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2) …
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.2-1ubuntu1) …
Setting up software-properties-common (0.96.24.32.5) …
Once you have installed software-properties-common, you can now comfortably use add-apt-repository or apt-add-repository commands to add PPA.
Note: If you see an error saying software-properties-common command not found, you should run sudo apt-get update and then try to install it again.
I hope this quick tip helped you in fixing “add-apt-repository: command not found” error on Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions.
If you are still facing issues with PPA, let me know in the comment section. Additional suggestions, questions and a quick word of thanks are always welcome.
About Abhishek Prakash
I am a professional software developer, and founder of It’s FOSS. I am an avid Linux lover and Open Source enthusiast. I use Ubuntu and believe in sharing knowledge. Apart from Linux, I love classic detective mysteries. I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie’s work.