If your helping with testing new features in the development version of ubuntu, or trying out a new Desktop Environment, you will likely encounter installing new packages from a ppa. But what happens when you want to roll back those changes?
Thankfully there is a tool to help called ppa-purge. PPA-purge will uninstall all packages from a specified ppa and downgrade you back to the archive versions. In addition it will disable the ppa so you can’t install packages from it.
Installation
How to use
Simply execute the following line, replace the ppa:NAMEOFPPA with the ppa you wish to purge.
I’ll show you a quick example of me removing the HUD ppa:
PPA to be removed: unity-team hud
comm: file 2 is not in sorted order
Package revert list generated:
gir1.2-dbusmenu-glib-0.4/precise gir1.2-dbusmenu-gtk-0.4/precise
indicator-appmenu/precise libdbusmenu-glib4/precise libdbusmenu-gtk3-4/precise
libdbusmenu-gtk4/precise libunity-core-5.0-5/precise unity/precise
unity-common/precise unity-services/precise
Disabling unity-team PPA from
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/unity-team-hud-precise.list
…
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
gir1.2-dbusmenu-glib-0.4 gir1.2-dbusmenu-gtk-0.4 libdbusmenu-glib4
libdbusmenu-gtk3-4 libdbusmenu-gtk4 indicator-appmenu
Note that it found the packages I had installed and offered to downgrade them. Say yes and ppa-purge will put you back to archive state. Neat!
via PPA-Purge: the magic undo buttton | The Orange Notebook.
Low Tech Linux 