have to update on a regular basis...why?

[Colin Law]

On 8 March 2015 at 08:58, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 8:57 PM, Thufir <hawat.thufir at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Quite frequently when I go to install a package it can't be found, but
>> just running sudo apt-get update fixes that. Why the constant need to
>> update? It's not like the package was suddenly added.
>
> Either
>
> 1) You're running "apt-get clean" and deleting the cached list of
> available packages

I don't think apt-get clean would cause a not found message.  I
thought it only deleted the downloaded deb files, not the knowledge of
which files are in the archive.

>
> 2) The package that you're installing has been updated and your cached
> list of available packages has the incorrect version

Again I would not have expected that to give a not found message.

Colin