what's sudo dpkg --configure -a?

[Alan Pope]

On 02/12/11 16:50, LinuxIsOne wrote:
> sudo dpkg --configure -a
>
> And after entering password, it ran around 15-20 mins....and the
> starting lines were like this:
>
> Setting up ubuntu-restricted-extras (39) ...
> Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.2ubuntu0.1) ...
>
> and then a long-long-long output...What it was doing...? Is it okay?
>
When you install software it gets unpacked and installed. Sometimes the 
configuration and installation doesn't get done. Maybe the power failed, 
or the installer was killed or died, or perhaps you ran out of disk 
space. In any event you can restart the configuration/installation step 
with that command. It basically means 'configure any packages which 
haven't been configured yet'. You can do it for individual packages:-

sudo dpkg --configure <packagename>

..or you can say 'do all of the ones that are outstanding:-

sudo dpkg --configure -a

If it did a lot then that's an indication something bad happened (as 
outlined above), but it's a good thing that you finally ran it :)

Cheers,
Al.