Error in the terminal trying to fix an error with synaptic Manager

[Mario Vukelic]

On Sat, 2007-09-15 at 17:39 -0700, ashley benton wrote:
> I am using an Internet address at bowiewonderworld.com.

> From my email address I just reply to the message to answer. 

I see, not much you can do then for now. We'll get to Evolution when we
worked out your sources.list :)

> After I am still unable to open the messages that I see in the system

> log,

You can use a text editor (open Text Editor from the menu, navigate
to /var/log); for most log files, there is no need to be the admin user
to read them. 
Or, just use a text viewer in the terminal, e.g.
"less /var/log/messages". Press Q to quit. There is also a log viewer in
menu System > Administration

> and unable to use my terminal to send or receive e-mail.

I don't understand this. You would need a email client for the terminal,
like mutt

> For the content of/etc/apt/sources; first I tried with the terminal,

> then I used the text editor. Most of it are the same but there is a few

> that I found in text editor and not in the terminal so I added them.. 

There is a few what? A few files, or content in the files? In any case,
terminal and text editor 
> 
> meg at meg-desktop:~$ cd /etc/apt
> meg at meg-desktop:/etc/apt$ ls
> apt.conf.d   sources.list    sources.list.save  trusted.gpg
> secring.gpg  sources.list.d  trustdb.gpg        trusted.gpg~
> meg at meg-desktop:/etc/apt$ cat sources.list

Very good :)

> deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted universe
(...)
> deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-security restricted main multiverse

As Liam already said in the other reply, this at least is broken. Every
repository should appear only once. Rather than trying to fix your
sources list, we should install a new one.

> meg at meg-desktop:/etc/apt$ cat sources.list.save

That's just a backup of sources.list


Ubuntu sometimes saves files in /etc/sources.list.d. This is equivalent
to having the entries directly in /etc/sources.list, but makes it easier
to maintain for the repository management software.

I suggest we start from a clean slate: remove all files
in /etc/sources.list.d by performing, in a terminal. Be cautious and
make sure to enter the command exactly as given, removing files as the
root user (i.e., with sudo) is dangerous (since nothing would stop you
from erasing the wring things):

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*

I have generated a smaller, and working, sources.list file. It is
attached to the email. Save this somewhere, e.g., in your home folder,
then copy it to /etc/apt:

sudo cp /home/meg/sources.list /etc/apt

Then make sure it has the correct file ownership and permissions set:

sudo chown root.root /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/sources.list

Now it should work, try it out with an update and upgrade:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

What does it do?

By the way, I have included the debian-multimedia repository in the
sources.list, but commented it out. It is really not advisable to have
that. I have added a few tips and links to sources.list, read it :)

Kind regards,
Mario

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