Avast Workstation has corrupted itself with it's own update.
 

Well this is something I didn't think I'd have to deal with quite so soon after putting Ubuntu on my laptop.

Being the paranoid individual that I am, I decided to put Avast antivirus (called workstation) on my Ubuntu install. That worked just as smoothly and quickly as expected.

Trouble started when I went to update it. It freaked out and gave me some kind of error. In my moment of idiocy I forgot to write it down, but needless to say, something didn't work, and now I can't touch the avast workstation.

Attempting to open it produces an error window that only says "Error occurred in Avast! engine: invalid argument". Reinstalling does nothing, and since I'm clueless as to how Linux works, I figured I'd ask for help before I do something I can't fix short of a reformat of the Ubuntu partition on my drive.

I've looked in the software manager, and Avast doesn't even show up in the list. I have no idea what to do at this point. I have a suspicion that when it attempted to update it's core engine the files had to be deleted, but since I didn't run it with root privileges it couldn't delete the outdated engine.

Since my ownership of Ubuntu can be counted in hours on one hand, I have a feeling this is a basic question, and I'll probably feel like an idiot once I read the answer. Assuming there is an answer.

That same thing happened to me, I'm using now Bit Defender antivirus for unices, it works flawlessly.
I dont know how to fix avast! but bit defender is very good, i have used it before too.

Run 'sudo sysctl kernel.shmmax' and note the value. The default should be something like 33554432. Now double that initial value with 'sysctl -w kernel.shmmax=$[33554432*2]' and try running your AV again. If it works (worked for me) then this forum.avast.com post provided the basics but the values are overkill. If it doesn't work try multiplying the initial value until you can run your AV. If you want to make the value stick on reboot add it to /etc/sysctl.conf or any other local init script that gets run on boot.

unSpawn, you are my hero. Your command produced immediate positive results. Avast came to life, and I was easily able to run it's database update. I will admit that it took me a little searching to figure out how to get the command line to stick in the rcS file however. Like I said, I'm so new at this it's painful.

Hopefully this problem will be solved on Avast's side of things, since they are well aware of the problem judging by the forum post you directed me to.

Thank you very much, my avast installation is now working even tho it is 32 bit version.
I installed it using --force-architecture and it works fine. I have 64 bit system.

Thanks a ton unSpawn. It worked on ubuntu 11.10.

Thank you very much unSpawn....really it worked. Can you please explain what is happening in multiplying process?