what's sudo dpkg --configure -a?

[LinuxIsOne]

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Alan Pope <alan at canonical.com> wrote:

> 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 :)

Oh I see, yes it worked since during the installation of restricted
formats I got an error: failed in the middle of installation. But
after rebooting, this ran and now it works.

Thanks.