How can I add a PPA from a previous release?

I've been trying to get vim with the breakindent patch applied, but it's only available through Quantal, and I'm running Raring. Is there a way to force-install a PPA from a previous release? I tried manually downloading all the packages and running sudo dpkg -i but I get lots of errors about dependencies, some of which don't look like they can be resolved. Am I stuck with having to compile vim myself?

Solution 1:

You should choose Modify in Software & Updates > Other software from raring to quantal distribution.

Solution 2:

After you add the repository, you can try to change the distribution manually:

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/eudoxos-vim-breakindent-<version>.list 
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/eudoxos/vim-breakindent/ubuntu <version> main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/eudoxos/vim-breakindent/ubuntu <version> main

So just replace <version> on those entries with quantal, and do sudo apt-get update. It is not guaranteed it will work, but if it doesn't you can revert the canges or remove the PPA.

Solution 3:

To avoid manual change of the sources list you can use the following command to add the repository for a specific Ubuntu version:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/eudoxos/vim-breakindent/ubuntu <needed_version_here> main"

To remove the added repo:

sudo add-apt-repository -r "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/eudoxos/vim-breakindent/ubuntu <needed_version_here> main"