[Solved] Can't Install Anything with Software Manager

[jinxella]

Well, this is my first day with Linux Mint. (Some experience prior, enough to get myself in trouble, apparently.) Trying to get my wireless to work, I found a video that said to install a few things from the software manager. Click 'install' nothing happens. Searched the internet for help, found two solutions.

First solution (from http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=112444):
sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/install-info.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/install-info.postinst.bad

It didn't help. More searching led me here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=93776
At the end of the thread, someone suggested this:
sudo mv /var/lib/apt/lists /var/lib/apt/lists.old
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/apt/lists/partial
sudo apt-get update

Now, in software manager, I can't see any of the not installed packages. Where it was some 35000 packages available, there are now 1916.

If you help me, I promise not to just randomly type things I find online without making sure I know exactly what I'm doing in the future. ^_^

[viking777]

Well the commands to reverse what you have done are quite simple so lets start there.

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sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/install-info.postinst.bad  /var/lib/dpkg/info/install-info.postinst

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists

sudo mv /var/lib/apt/lists.old  /var/lib/apt/lists

sudo apt-get update

[jinxella]

Thank you! That absolutely worked. I promise not to do anything that I can't figure out how to undo on my own from now on.

I feel like I probably have more reading to do to figure out why I can't install anything. But if anyone has ideas, those would be welcome as well. I've only tried to install broadcom-sta-common and broadcom-sta-source, because I read somewhere that I needed those to get my wifi working.

Lots to learn still.

[viking777]

There are two alternatives to the Software Manager, Synaptic (the package manager) and the command line so try those. Synaptic is just a gui you should be able work that out without me explaining it, the command to install broadcom-sta-common would be:

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sudo apt-get install broadcom-sta-common

If you try that and get some errors paste them here that might give us a clue.

[jinxella]

So, yes, that worked. Also, connecting to the internet helped. I don't know why I was under the impression that the packages were there, just not 'installed', but I was. Things work quite differently when you can actually access the things you are trying to install.

Thank you!!!