Ubuntu extra Repositories

Extra Repositories / Universe / Multiverse

In addition to the officially supported package repositories available for Ubuntu, there exist additional community-maintained repositories which add thousands more potential packages for installation. Two of the most popular are the Universe and Multiverse repositories. These repositories are not officially supported by Ubuntu, but because they are maintained by the community they generally provide packages which are safe for use with your Ubuntu computer.

	Packages in the Multiverse repository often have licensing issues that prevent them from being distributed with a free operating system, and they may be illegal in your locality.

	Be advised that neither the Universe or Multiverse repositories contain officially supported packages. In particular, there may not be security updates for these packages.

Many other package sources are available, sometimes even offering only one package, as in the case of package sources provided by the developer of a single application. You should always be very careful and cautious when using non-standard package sources, however. Research the source and packages carefully before performing any installation, as some package sources and their packages could render your system unstable or non-functional in some respects.

By default, the Universe and Multiverse repositories are enabled but if you would like to disable them edit /etc/apt/sources.list and comment the following lines:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy universe multiverse  deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy universe multiverse    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe  deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy universe  deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe  deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse  deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy multiverse  deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates multiverse  deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates multiverse    deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe  deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe  deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security multiverse  deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security multiverse  

References

Adding Repositories HOWTO (Ubuntu Wiki)