How to add and remove custom software sources on OpenSUSE Linux
OpenSUSE Linux has a lot of ways that users can install software from unofficial, custom software sources. As a result, it manages to provide one of the largest selections of Linux software in the open source community. Still, due to it being a less popular Linux operating system (compared to Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and others) many new users to the OpenSUSE world aren’t sure how to add these custom software sources on OpenSUSE Linux.
In this guide, we’re going to dig deep into OpenSUSE and explain how to add custom, third-party software sources to the system. We’ll also show you how to remove these custom software sources, which can be especially handy, as removing them can be about as confusing as adding them.
Adding custom software sources – YaST
OpenSUSE Linux distributions ship with YaST, a complete, GUI toolbox that allows users to do everything from figuring out hardware specifications to spinning up various server software programs, to adding software repositories, and much more. It’s very user-friendly, and if you’re new to the OS, the SUSE developers would prefer you use YaST to accomplish most of your system-tweaking with it.
To start, find the URL of the third-party software repository you’re looking to add to OpenSUSE. Then, highlight it with the mouse and copy it to your clipboard. From there, open up your application menu, search for “YaST” and open it up.
When the YaST tool starts up, enter your password. As soon as you do, you’ll have access to the YaST Control Center, which shows off many different settings categories.
Look through the YaST Control Center and click on “Software.” Then, once you’ve selected the “Software” category, find “Software Sources” and click on that to launch OpenSUSE’s software repo management tool.
In the YaST Software Repositories tool, you’ll see a massive list of every software source that is currently on your OpenSUSE Linux system. To add a new, third-party software source to this list, look to the bottom of the window and click on the “Add” button.
After clicking “Add,” a new page will appear with several options. Select the “Specify URL” one, then click “Next” to move on to the next page.
On the page that follows the options one, you’ll see two text boxes. Find the box under Repository Name” and write out the name of the third-party software repository. Then, right-click on the “URL” box and paste in the software repo URL from your clipboard.
When both boxes are filled out in YaST, select the “Next” button on the page. Allow OpenSUSE to download everything necessary to set up your new custom software repository.
Removing custom software sources – YaST
Removing a software source on OpenSUSE is also done in YaST in the software management app. To remove a repository, launch YaST, enter your password, click on “Software Management”, and then “Software Sources” as you did before. Then, scan through the list and click on the repo that you’re trying to remove. After that, select the “Delete” button.
Warning: Do not delete official OpenSUSE software repositories from your system, only third-party ones. If you do remove official software sources, your system could break and become unusable after updates.
When you select the “Delete” option in YaST, it’ll ask you if you want to remove the software source. Choose “Yes” to confirm, and the software repository should be gone.
Adding custom software sources – Terminal
If you’re not a fan of GUIs and prefer the terminal, you’ll be happy to know that it’s just as easy to add custom software sources on OpenSUSE in this way as it is in with YAST. Here’s how it works.
To start, launch a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, highlight the software repository you’re trying to add to your system and copy it to the clipboard.
After saving the software repository to the clipboard, return to the terminal and write out the following command.
Note: you can paste the software repo URL into the terminal with Ctrl + Shift + V.
sudo zypper addrepo -f https://url-of-software-repository/ name-of-repository
Press enter to add the new software repository to OpenSUSE. Then, refresh your software sources to finish the setup process.
sudo zypper refresh
Removing custom software sources – Terminal
Want to get rid of a third-party software source on OpenSUSE through the terminal? Here’s how to do it.
First, run the repos command to view all software repositories currently set up on the system.
zypper repos -d
Look through the output of the repos command, and copy the URL of the repo you’d like to remove and use the removerepo command to get rid of it.
sudo zypper removerepo https://url-of-software-repository/
