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After months of experimenting with my old family computer i got as a hand me down, i finally decided to do a windows/ubuntu dual boot on it. Well when i went to put VLC on Ubuntu through the GUI, it says "package already installed" even though it is not. So i turned to the command line, and got this Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?
Ideas?
I would make sure that apt-get or aptitude is not running in the background first, and if not, log in as root within a terminal, and remove the lock. From there, try reinstalling VLC again.
Ok i am incredibly rusty with Linux as i haven't been able to touch it much since i started college >.< so how do i log in as a root in terminal and remove the lock(again, super rusty) and also i remember you, you helped me get easytether up and running several months back under debian. I still appreciate that
Sure thing man.... Open a terminal, and type the following:
Code:
su -
From there, enter your root password, and type the following:
Code:
ps aux | grep apt-get
ps aux | grep dpkg
If you see any processes that are running, kill them using the "kill" command. Once you are certain that you don't have anything running anymore,
perform the following:
Code:
rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
From there, try running the last piece of code:
Code:
apt-get install vlc
Now you should be good, I think.... If that doesn't work, report back and let me know, and we can start troubleshooting.
To answer the OP's specific question, you can launch your already-installed VLC by pressing Alt
F2 and typing "vlc". If for some reason it is not installed (the system is telling you it is) then you can install it with a few mouse clicks in the Ubuntu Software Center or the terminal command "sudo apt-get install vlc".
In Ubuntu, su doesn't work unless you set a root password.
But you can do sudo su, use your sudo password, and have a lengthy session as su.
I have VLC running just fine on two Ubuntu boxes, so it should install and work, if that's any comfort.
If you get the "already in use" error message again, I would suggest running ps -A and inspecting the output to see what other process might be hogging apt.
Damn it! Thanks guys.... That's why I don't use ubuntu.... Because it's way too new-age for me....
Quote:
If you get the "already in use" error message again, I would suggest running ps -A and inspecting the output to see what other process might be hogging apt.
If su is good enough for Slackware, it's good enough for Ubuntu.
Nothing wrong with su, nothing wrong with Slackware--this doesn't have to be a "vs" thread.
However "sudo su" has been known to cause file permission/ownership issues in Ubuntu, I have seen this happen many times on the Ubuntu forums. "sudo -i" is safer (similar to "sudo su -") as it changes the shell variables to root's instead of the user's.
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