[IPython-dev] message from a launchpad developer

[Andrew Straw]

Ville M. Vainio wrote:
> On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Andrew Straw <strawman at astraw.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> I thought you guys might be interested in this blog post i came across
>>  -- a launchpad dev is praising the new doctest_mode and suggesting a PPA
>>  ("Personal Package Archive" -- .deb repository hosted at launchpad) with
>>  the latest IPython: http://elliotmurphy.com/2008/04/23/ipython-and-doctests/
>>     
>
> Anyone know what benefits PPA brings over just uploading the releases
> to launchpad download folder? It would seem easier to just download
> and install the release than it is to edit your apt sources list...
>   
The main benefits I can think of:

 * PPAs integrate with the Ubuntu Update Manager -- a new release will
be just like any other update from the user's perspective. According to
their preferences, it will be a single click to install or will be
automatically installed.

 * The .debs will be built by their buildbots for all the architectures
they support, which also ensures that your debian package at least
builds from source.

Of course, .debs should only be installed for the specific version of
debian (derivative) they were compiled for. Thus, it's not a replacement
for a source tarball (although a debian source package, by definition,
comes with an unmodified source tarball), but something in addition to that.