Ubuntu
apt package

reinstall - can't find archive

Asked by Terri Widau

I am attempting to update to 12.04 from 11.10 and received the following message:

E: The package linus-headers-3.0.0.15-generic needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.

This is the message that I've received in the terminal. When I type in sudo apt-get dist-upgrade that is the response I receive. Anyone know how I correct this problem.

Thanks

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Barry Drake
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

How are you attempting to upgrade?

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Barry Drake (b-drake) said : 		#2

It sounds to me as though your safest and most reliable course would be forgetting the upgrade and going for a clean install. There seem to be a multitude of things that have happened to 11.10 that cause a problem. Try to fix it and you may cripple the system entirely after wasting hours of work. Others may disagree.

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Terri Widau (twidau) said : 		#3

I am trying to upgrade from a download on the site.

If I decided to do a clean install, how do I do it? I am pretty new at Ubuntu so it takes me a while.

Thanks for responding.

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Barry Drake (b-drake) said : 		#4

That is far easier. It won't save any of your data so you have to be able to make sure you are fully backed up. First question: is Ubuntu the only system you have on your hard drive or is it dual boot with some other operating system? How was the original installation carried out? (This is very important because if you carried it out with a copy of Windows running at the time, we have to know a lot more details). A clean install if there is nothing else required on the hard drive is easy and automatic using a live-CD. You download the iso image from the Ubuntu site and burn it to ma DVD. Then you use it as a boot disk.

Please answer the above questions though before trying as you will very likely save a lot of anguish.

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Terri Widau (twidau) said : 		#5

Thanks for the info Barry. It is not a dual boot and the original installation was through a DVD. If it is that simple I will give it a try. I had someone else burn the DVD because I could't figure out. I will give it a try though. Thank you

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Best Barry Drake (b-drake) said : 		#6

It really is that simple if you tell it to use the entire hard drive and follpow all the defaults. Don't try the upgrade option or the option for installing the new alongside the old. Just tell it to use the entire hard drive, and follow the defaults ignoring the warnings that it will overwrite all data. You knew that already. You might be well advised to run the live-CD without installing first, just bin case 12.04 has a problem with your hardware. Check that it all works running directly from the DVD and then install. Please don't go for the option of loging in with no password - you can change that leter if you want.

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Terri Widau (twidau) said : 		#7

Thanks Barry Drake, that solved my question.

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Terri Widau (twidau) said : 		#8

Thanks so much. I appreciate the help and I'll get started!