- FLAVOR: all? - HEADLINE: Improve experience of using 3rd-party apt sources - DESCRIPTION: This suggestion is more apt related, but Ubuntu could lead the improvements. Many software providers (Microsoft, Elastic, etc) are using their own apt repositories to be able to deliver updates faster than the Ubuntu release cycle, which is great. However, configuring them usually requires Googling the instructions and at least 3 commands. For example, installing SQL Server for Linux has the following commands before you can even run apt-get install (from their official documentation):

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add - curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/mssql-ser... | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-server.list sudo apt-get update

That is not user-friendly at all. It would be great if apt could help you out here. i.e. if I type in "apt install mssql-server", it could detect that it is not in the Ubuntu sources but that it is available in a trusted 3rd party source, and prompt me to add that source to my local apt sources. It would then also automatically update that source.

Also, perhaps the Ubuntu sources have an older version but a newer version is available at a trusted 3rd party, and provide an informational message and an apt command-line flag that would allow you to add the source. i.e. "mssql-server 17.0.0 is available at the third party source 'microsoft'. To install it, run 'apt install mssql-server -S microsoft'" which would add the microsoft source and install the package. - ROLE: software engineer