Today I was trying to install Oracle Java 7 (aka 1.7) on a Ubuntu Server 12.10 and was greeted by this lovely error,
 
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admin@ubuntuserver:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found
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From what I remembered when I encountered this problem before, all I needed to install was,
 
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sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
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But with Ubuntu Server 12.10 you also now need to install,
 
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sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
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After installing the “software-properties-common” package I was again able to install PPA repositories from the terminal again, as you used to be able to.
 
Also as a side note, as of Ubuntu 11.04 there is now a symlink for “apt-add-repository” to fall inline with all the other “apt” commands. Since all the other relating “apt” commands already begins with a “apt”, this totally makes sense to me!
 
So now you can either use “apt-add-repository” or “add-apt-repository” to add PPA repositories.
 
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sudo apt-add-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
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OR
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
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admin@ubuntuserver:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
You are about to add the following PPA to your system:
Oracle Java (JDK) Installer (automatically downloads and installs Oracle JDK6 / JDK7 / JDK8). There are no actual Java files in this PPA. More info: http://www .webupd8.org/2012/01/install-oracle-java-jdk-7-in-ubuntu-via.html
More info: https://launchpad.net/~webupd8team/+archive/java
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it

gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmp92s118/secring.gpg’ created
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmp92s118/pubring.gpg’ created
gpg: requesting key EEA14886 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: /tmp/tmp92s118/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key EEA14886: public key “Launchpad VLC” imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: imported: 1 (RSA: 1)
OK
admin@ubuntuserver:~$
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