[geokon]

Except it doesn't really have PPAs ... which limits outside contribution and is a huge downside

[gettodachoppa]

What is the advantage of PPAs over an apt repo that users place in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/someexternalapp? Is it having a central site that users can search for packages? Basically a social portal?

[vetrom]

Having an automated per-user publishing pipeline for packages is a non trivial endeavour.

These days you can get close with github-actions style pieplines and releases, but the PPA system has always been a more complete platform in terms of dependency management.

You can get close with some debian tooling (im a fan of sbuild), but it's some overhead to deal with.

[apple4ever]

Agreed. I'd love to switch to Debian, but the lack of PPAs makes it difficult.

Also Debian is always much further behind than Ubuntu on new packages.

[extraduder_ire]

IIRC, you can still add those repos. The PPA system just makes it a little easier to add them.

[geokon]

it's one of those things that will probably work most of the time

PPAs are built against Ubuntu packages as dependencies - which usually but not always match Debian ones. Easy way to get subtly broken programs

[personomas]

Can you explain how better? A link to an example maybe

[NikkiA]

https://vitux.com/how-to-add-ppa-repositories-in-debian/