mintInstall and Synaptic Package Manager Problem

[lagagnon]

First of all check your Mint Menu - at the leftmost side of the Menu panel do you have any small tabs there? If yes, get rid of them, they are interfering with the security of the package managers.

[clhodapp]

can you type this into a terminal and tell me what pops up?
gksudo mintinstall

Also, it's not as pretty, but synaptic can handle most of your software-installing needs if you are in a pinch.

[clhodapp]

Sorry, I misread your post.

use gksudo synaptic and post what shows up in the terminal.

[lagagnon]

koos: I really don't know what you've done but your system is seriously broken. I might suggest reinstalling apt, synaptic, mintInstall but you cannot do that if apt doesn't work so if I were you I wouldn't waste any more time - backup your data and resinstall the system.