[Bug 2037210] Re: unable to add PPA by its sources.list line

[Norbert]

@Nick Rosbrook (enr0n)

Your assumption is correct only in the case when PPA_release =
distro_release.

But in my case the situation is different:
1. distro version is 23.10,
2. PPA provides packages only for 22.04 LTS.

Also please note that there are some obsolete PPAs where their owner is
not available of lost the interest for maintaining the packages.

So for some packages it is impossible to run `apt-add-repository ppa:user/archive`. 
So please support old behavior of add-apt-repository. 

This will make possible to run the below command

```
sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/vte/ubuntu jammy main" # note that jammy!=mantic
```

on modern Ubuntu 23.10 without issues.

---

Actually it is good that third-party repository support in software-
properties-common is not broken, so the following commands work without
issues on 23.10:

```
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv  A2F683C52980AECF
sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian jammy contrib"
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-7.0
```

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2037210

Title:
  unable to add PPA by its sources.list line

Status in Software Properties:
  Confirmed
Status in software-properties package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Steps to reproduce:
  1. Have Ubuntu 23.10 installed
  2. Run 

  ```
  sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv E756285F30DB2B2BB35012E219BFCAF5168D33A9
  sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/vte/ubuntu jammy main"
  sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/wnck/ubuntu jammy main"
  ```

  Expected results:

  * key added, two repositories are added to the relevant *.list files
  at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

  Actual results:

  * relevant *.list files at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ are not created,
  having errors instead

  ```
  $ sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/vte/ubuntu jammy main"
  Repository: 'deb http: //ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/vte/ubuntu jammy main
  Components: 
  '
  Description:
  This PPA contains VTE library from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS which is not affected by stupid bug https://pad.lv/1922276 . So user will be able to select all terminal output with full scroll-back in MATE Terminal and other VTE-based terminals as it is expected.

  This PPA is useful for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 11 (bullseye) and
  Debian 12 (bookworm).

  As usual one can always remove this PPA and downgrade VTE packages by using `sudo apt-get install ppa-purge` and `sudo ppa-purge ppa:nrbrtx/vte`.
  More info: https://launchpad.net/~nrbrtx/+archive/ubuntu/vte
  Adding repository.
  E: Malformed entry 1 in sources file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nrbrtx-ubuntu-vte-mantic.sources (URI)
  E: The list of sources could not be read.

  $ sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/wnck/ubuntu jammy main"
  Repository: 'deb http: //ppa.launchpad.net/nrbrtx/wnck/ubuntu jammy main
  Components: 
  '
  Description:
  This PPA provides patched libwnck3 package to fix  https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/1230 and https://pad.lv/1947420 .
  See details at https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/1230#issuecomment-997422612 .

  This PPA is useful for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Debian 12 (bookworm).

  As usual one can always remove this PPA and downgrade WNCK packages by using `sudo apt-get install ppa-purge` and `sudo ppa-purge ppa:nrbrtx/wnck`.
  More info: https://launchpad.net/~nrbrtx/+archive/ubuntu/wnck
  Adding repository.
  Found existing deb entry in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nrbrtx-ubuntu-vte-mantic.sources
  E: Malformed entry 1 in sources file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nrbrtx-ubuntu-vte-mantic.sources (URI)
  E: The list of sources could not be read.

  $ sudo apt-get update 
  E: Malformed entry 1 in sources file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nrbrtx-ubuntu-vte-mantic.sources (URI)
  E: The list of sources could not be read.
  ```

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 23.10
  Package: software-properties-common 0.99.39
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.5.0-5.5-generic 6.5.0
  Uname: Linux 6.5.0-5-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.27.0-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
  CurrentDesktop: GNOME-Flashback
  Date: Sun Sep 24 14:02:10 2023
  PackageArchitecture: all
  SourcePackage: software-properties
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to mantic on 2023-04-13 (164 days ago)
  modified.conffile..etc.default.apport:
   # set this to 0 to disable apport, or to 1 to enable it
   # you can temporarily override this with
   # sudo service apport start force_start=1
   enabled=0
  mtime.conffile..etc.default.apport: 2023-09-24T13:25:34.901411

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