Everytime I try to use apt-get -f install I get the response E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1). Can someone please help me with this.

Hi, Welcome to LQ,

This error simply means dpkg failed, but from the information you gave, it is not clear why. The more information you will give more people on LQ will be able to help you.

Does it say only "Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)" or are there more lines? Run the command and use the forum CODE construct to post the content of the terminal.

In the meantime, you might try:

More context please. If you're running something like debian sid, that's something that happens with "still in development", and you can generally wait 24 hours and update again and it goes away. As long as your apt sources.list is not too much different from what the developers are using.

There could be other things in play like / being read-only. Or it's been sooo long since you updated that you are too far out of sync to fix that error without trickery. One trick that I've used it to change /var/lib/dpkg/status to report the questionable package as installed, then apt-get -f install, then apt-get install --reinstall that questionable package. Although normally only necessary when two packages require each other and neither will install before the other is installed. If you go with a stable branch, that is far less likely to ever occur.

One other trick is to $(ar -x package.deb) and $(tar -x... data.tar.gz) in / to basically do the steps that the installer does manually based on the packages actual contents. Basically you're doing the package management manually and bypassing the installer to fix the installer. With these tricks you can fix otherwise fatal mistakes like uninstalling libc, without needing to start from scratch. Although that would require at least one other bootable option to apply the fix.

In my experience that dpkg code most often indicates a problem with an install script or dependency. What are you doing actually to produce the error?