You can use a script to disable/enable a ppa very easily. Save the script as toggle_ppa.sh and put it in /usr/local/bin

#!/bin/bash

#

# toggle_ppa.sh

#

# DESCRIPTION:  Detects if a PPA is active/inactive and deactivates/activates it

#               on user confirmation.



SOURCEDIRECTORY=/etc/apt/sources.list.d

PPA="$1"     

if [ -z "$PPA" ]

then

    echo "Error: Please provide a PPA name to toggle between activation/deactivation"

    echo "The PPA name should be formatted as it appears on launchpad, e.g.:

"$0" ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager"

    exit 1

fi



## Root privileges



if [ "$(whoami)" != "root" ]; then

  echo "Error: This script needs root privileges. Restarting..."

  sudo "$0" "$1"

  exit

fi



### MAIN



SOURCELIST_NOPFX="${PPA#*:}" #remove 'ppa:' prefix

SOURCELIST="${SOURCELIST_NOPFX////-}"-$(lsb_release -cs) #replace all slashes with dashes, include release

SOURCEFILE="$SOURCEDIRECTORY"/"$SOURCELIST".list #compose sources list path



if [ -e "$SOURCEFILE" ]

then

    echo "Processing $SOURCEFILE..."

    SOURCE_COMMENTED=$(grep "^#deb " "$SOURCEFILE") #check if sources line is commented

    if [ -z "$SOURCE_COMMENTED" ]

    then

        echo "$PPA is active. Going to deactivate. Proceed? [ y/n ]"

        read ANSWER

        if [ $ANSWER == "y" ]

        then

            sed -i "s/^deb-src/#deb-src/" $SOURCEFILE

            sed -i "s/^deb http/#deb http/" $SOURCEFILE

            echo "Updating package index files..."

            sudo apt-get update

            echo "Done."

        else

            echo "Aborted."

            exit 0

        fi

    else

        echo "$PPA is inactive. Going to activate. Proceed? [ y/n ]"

        read ANSWER

        if [ $ANSWER == "y" ]

        then

            sed -i "s/^#deb-src/deb-src/" $SOURCEFILE

            sed -i "s/^#deb http/deb http/" $SOURCEFILE

            echo "Updating package index files..."

            sudo apt-get update

            echo "Done."

        else

            echo "Aborted."

            exit 0

        fi

    fi

else

    echo "Error: Source file at $SOURCEFILE for $PPA does not exist. Please check PPA name."

    exit 0

fi

Usage

sudo toggle_ppa.sh <full-ppa-name>

Example

sudo toggle_ppa.sh ppa:webupd8team/java

How it works

When any ppa repo is deactivated using Software center (GUI), it actually puts a # in front of all the lines inside corresponding ppa .list file at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. Usually most of the .list files contain two lines that begins with deb http and deb-src, a few have only one. The above script is doing the same thing using sed. First it checks the ppa .list (input by user) is present or not. Then put or remove a # in front the lines accordingly.

The code acts in a very interactive manner. When someone runs this along with ppa name as its argument, it will display the PPA's current status and what the code is going to do on successful execution. Then it will ask permission of the user. Only if the user inputs 'y' to confirm the code will change the status of the PPA and activate/deactivate it. It will immediately abort if the user puts an 'n' for no.

_{Note I proposed this code in this answered. glutanimate helped a lot to improve the code.}