Can't install PHP 7.3: “release not found”

Question

I want to install php7.3. I use the following script.

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && \
    apt-get -y install software-properties-common && \
    add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php && \
    apt-get update && \
    apt-get -y install  php7.3 \
                        php7.3-mbstring

The error says:

W: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu eoan Release' does not have a Release file.
E: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu/dists/eoan/main/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I am using:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Release:    18.04
Codename:   bionic

The guide I followed was How to install PHP (7, 7.2 or 7.3) on Ubuntu .

Answer 1

It looks like your system is trying to use eoan distribution of Ubuntu, which is not yet released, so it's no wonder that packages for that distribution do not exist on this PPA.

You can manually change eoan to bionic in the relevant file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and run apt-get update && apt-get -y install php7.3 php7.3-mbstring again.

Why is your system using eoan instead of bionic , I cannot answer.