[SOLVED] Serious problem

teboil12 · 07-10-2020, 08:19 AM

Hello

I tried to install a program from the net, did not succeed. All I got is this announcement: E:Type '’deb' is not known on line 1 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/helineva-net.list, E:The list of sources could not be read.
As a result I cannot open Synaptic or any other means of installing programs. Is there any way to solve this problem in a civilized manner? Or do I have to reinstall this Linux Mint 19.3???
I am not very skilled with this, please try to be easy to understand, as I am 73 years old...

wpeckham · 07-10-2020, 08:24 AM

Did you keep notes about exactly what you did to modify your sources?
Did you first back up your sources?

The quickest fix is to back out what you changed to restore to a working state.

Beyond that, we have no idea what version of which distribution you are talking about. There are MANY!
We have no idea what you did, or what instructions you might have followed.

Can you give us a little bit of information to get us started?

shruggy · 07-10-2020, 08:51 AM

Rename the offending file

Code:

sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/helineva-net.list{,.bak}

and try again.

DavidMcCann · 07-10-2020, 09:03 AM

The moral of this is to install from your distro's respository rather than getting odd things of the internet! Obviously the package management system has got itself into a fine old mess. I'm no expert on Mint, but you could try the following commands

Code:

sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update

and see if that cures the problem.

sevendogsbsd · 07-10-2020, 09:42 AM

What DavidMcCann said. Linux is not at all like Windows in that Windows forces you to go to various web sites and download software. Linux has software repositories that have (mostly) everything you need. Those repositories are trusted and you simply use the package installation application (or command line) to install programs. Much safer.

teboil12 · 07-11-2020, 02:45 AM

Hello!

A little background: I tried to install an invoicing program that I have been using for at least 5 years on my laptop, but this time the installing did not work, for some reason.

Thank you DavidMcCann, your advice did it! How wonderful to have friends all over the world ready to help, I really appreciate it!!!

hazel · 07-11-2020, 04:42 AM

It's a pleasure to teach people who want to learn! Take a look at https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...se-them-37648/ which will tell you a bit more about package managers.