Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, etc.

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seavagabond

Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, etc.

Post by seavagabond »

Had been experiencing a few problems with the system when installing new applications.
I have a Toshiba Portege R500 and have Mint 13 Maya Mate 64-bits installed.
The Software Manager has stopped working for a long time now and I use the command line instead.
Recently I tried to install Wine, since then, when trying to install an application or fixing packages through the terminal a window opens asking to sign a Microsoft licence agreement and I need to close the terminal and abort whatever operation I was doing (screenshot attached).

Now I tried to install syslinux and I get the following:
sudo apt-get install syslinux
E: 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?
The two things are not probably related but for sure something odd is going on. Thanks in advance for any help.
I just seen the post Install Wine on Linux Mint 13 MATE 64 bit by xenopeek but too late now!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
viking777

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by viking777 »

If you are installing microsoft products (and they include fonts in that definition) then you can expect to suffer microsoft licensing nonsense - no mystery there.

As for the other error just remove the lock file.

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sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock
Then try again.

It might even make the software manager work again who knows. Btw, if it doesn't just use Synaptic, it is better than the software manager and easier than the command line.
srs5694
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Posts: 1386
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:42 pm

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by srs5694 »

The screen shot you showed looks like it's the license agreement for a Linux-format font package containing Microsoft fonts. This package was probably installed as a dependency on something else (probably WINE), but it's probably not the WINE binary that's causing it to appear. You should probably just accept the license terms; then it shouldn't appear again, at least not unless or until the package is updated. If you find the license terms objectionable, you should be able to uninstall the package:

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sudo dpkg -P ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Since the package is not 100% configured, though, it's conceivable you'll need to use another command or add some options. (I'm not all that familiar with that detail of dpkg operation.) Also, if the package was brought in because of a dependency, that dependency won't be met, so dpkg will probably complain and either require you to remove the depended-upon package or issue an override option, such as --ignore-depends. The latter option will likely create hassles down the road, though, since apt-get will probably try to re-install the unwanted fonts package whenever you run it.
seavagabond

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by seavagabond »

The mscorefonts-installer popped up again when doing something and it doesn't allow me to accept it (at least I didn't find a way), so I tried to uninstall it and I get the following:

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sudo dpkg -P ttf-mscorefonts-installer
dpkg: error processing ttf-mscorefonts-installer (--purge):
 Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
 reinstall it before attempting a removal.
Errors were encountered while processing:
 ttf-mscorefonts-installer
What can I do? I'm happy to delete the whole Wine thing. How do I do it?
srs5694
Level 6
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Posts: 1386
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:42 pm

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by srs5694 »

Try doing as the message suggests: Re-install it (via "sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer"). You can then try uninstalling it if you like.
seavagabond

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by seavagabond »

Thanks, done that. Finding things still confusing, I still get the message:

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E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/[/quote]
Below is what I've done:

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sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
[sudo] password for francesca: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be upgraded:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 402 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ 
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be upgraded:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 402 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ apt-get install -f
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
The following packages will be upgraded:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 409 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ 
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ sudo apt-get remove --purge wine
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package wine is not installed, so not removed
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
The following packages will be upgraded:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 409 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/
francesca@PORTEGE-R500 ~ $ sudo apt-get remove --purge ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 409 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/
viking777

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by viking777 »

The fact that you keep getting all these 'lock' errors seems to suggest that you have some other package management program running at the same time you are using the command line. The following programs should be closed whilst attempting to use apt-get: mintupdate, mintinstall, synaptic, software manager. If you are sure nothing of this sort is running and you are still getting 'lock' errors then all you can do is to forcibly remove the lock file, in this case:

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sudo rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
And try again.
srs5694
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1386
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:42 pm

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by srs5694 »

It looks to me like there's something else trying to use your package system -- perhaps an automatic updater that's failing to exit. You might see if dropping to single-user mode ("sudo telinit 1") will enable you to run those commands. Note that when you do this, your GUI will disappear along with most of your running programs (including all of your running GUI programs), and you'll end up with a text-mode session. I just tested this and I was prompted for the root password, which I set on all my computers. I'm not sure what will happen if you haven't set a root password; perhaps that prompt will be skipped, or maybe it won't work at all. Once you're done, rebooting or typing "telinit 2" will restore your GUI session, although you'll need to re-launch any open programs.

If this doesn't work, then it may require somebody with more dpkg/APT know-how than I've got to resolve the problem.
seavagabond

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by seavagabond »

Help! my Network Manager is not running any more.

I'm connecting from another computer.

I run

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sudo rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/lock 
But I still got some error messages, so I run the command

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sudo telinit 1 
and things seemed to work better,

after I rebooted the laptop with

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sudo telinit 2 
I had lost connection.

How can I re-enable Networking?
viking777

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by viking777 »

Well first of all you shut down the computer and restart it. But I assume you will have already tried that.
The second question is how do you know your network manager is not working? It might seem like a stupid question, but it isn't. The applet you see in your system tray is not the network manager, it is an applet for controlling the network manager. So we have to establish first what it is that is not working. The easiest way to see if nework manager is running or not is to open the 'System Monitor' program, and select the processes tab. Then go to the 'View' menu on the top bar and select 'All Processes'. Now scroll down the list until you get to the letter 'N' and if network manager is running you will see it there. If you don't see it then it is not running. The part of Network Manager that you see on your system tray is called nm-applet - on a normal system you can see the process just under the network manager one. Maybe on your system it isn't there.

Once you have decided which one it is you can run either of these two commands from a terminal:

If network-manager has stopped run

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sudo service network-manager stop
(Just to be sure) then

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sudo rm /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state
then

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sudo service network-manager start
Then reboot and see if you have a working network manager.

If it is just the tray applet that is not running you can start that with the command:

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nm-applet
soldier1st

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by soldier1st »

viking777 wrote:If you are installing microsoft products (and they include fonts in that definition) then you can expect to suffer microsoft licensing nonsense - no mystery there.

As for the other error just remove the lock file.

Code: Select all

sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock
Then try again.

It might even make the software manager work again who knows. Btw, if it doesn't just use Synaptic, it is better than the software manager and easier than the command line.
I find i use Synaptic for apps, but use the update manager in the lower right to update stuff. so much simpler.
seavagabond

Re: Obtrusive Windows licence agreement, broken packages, e

Post by seavagabond »

Thank you vicking777, online again. Will try to install some other application and see if I get more error messages. When running:

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sudo telinit 1 
the /ttf-mscorefonts-installer bug was removed completely - or so it seems so far!
Thank you srs5694.
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