I installed unbuntu on new computer 8.04 live from cd and it givges me a "error occured, please run package manager. message was : error opening the cache(E: malformed line 58 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list(dist parse), E: the list of spurces could not be read) This usually means your installed packages have unmet dependancies

Hi,

* I am not sure to understand what you mean with "won't recognize hardware". If you can run the X server (graphic mode), you can access to most functions except 3D acceleration; it's annoying but not really blocking.

* For the error with the package manager: have you done something particular to your /etc/apt/sources.list file? Perhaps you have tried to change something? There is an error line 58 of this file, you may want to edit it and to see what happens there.

* Why not trying the most recent version of Ubuntu (8.10)? Do you have a particular reason to stay on the 8.4? You can just try the live CD mode of the 8.10 to check if it works better than 8.4

Hope this helps!

Have you tried re-installing Ubuntu yet? Sometimes going through the process a second time fixes user errors (well it did for me anyway)

Don't worry about feeling dumb, i bet it took years to understand Windows so don't expect to understand Linux fully right from the start. You'll learn it fast because it's much more user-friendly and doesn't hide stuff and worry about 'security issues' such as the user actually using the machine. Linux code is written to be much safer and more stable so it not paranoid (unlike certain OS's)

Also try looking around here for 'apt-get' and 'package problems' as you're not completely alone although most of us have it working fine right from the start.

Good luck and have fun with Linux

Welcome in :)

    Hmm, have you tried apt-get?

    Try getting to a command line version of the package manager rather than the Gui from the menus
Applications menu - Accessories - Terminal
     sounds bad but 'terminal' is just like 'Command Prompt' in Windows (was that your last OS?)
     Ok, now in the Terminal window try
apt-get --help
    to see the help file on using apt-get. Most commands have a help file like this in Linux
    What does this give?
apt-get -f
    I suspect that if this doesn't work then we need to look into sorting your repositories out.

    Was that any help?

    Errr, should that have been
apt-get -f install

To a similar question marcobra said

Open a Terminal from the menu Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type:
(when the system ask you a password give your user password, you will not see nothing when you type it, then press enter)

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get --fix-missing install
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

Hope this helps

Does this help? Please let us know :)

If you are still having trouble with this then please post it as a new question. Only the most recent questions tend to get looked at so posting/reposting a question just before america arrives online gives the best chance of getting a good few answers.

If the problem has been resolved then please follow the link to the forum thread and mark it as Solved.

Good luck and many regards from
Tom :)

I have a similar problem:

Ubunbtu 10:04 64 on a old Dell Latitude D531
new install from a cd-rom, replacing xubuntu

After instal wi-fi needed some extra (unsupported drivers from Broadcom to be installed) Once these had been install and the laptop re-started a "no entry" sign appeared in the top navigation bar next to my network icon.

Clicking on this launches Update Manager - which then gives me a warning message:

"An unresolvable problem occurred while initializing the package information.

Please report this bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the following error message:

'E:Read error - read (5: Input/output error), E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'"

I have tried

$sudo apt-get --help

Which works fine

... but
$ sudo apt-get -f install

gives:

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Read error - read (5: Input/output error)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

$ sudo dpkg dpkg --configure -a

gives:

dpkg: failed in buffer_read(fd): copy info file `/var/lib/dpkg/status': Input/output error

any more suggestions for things that I can try?

I have a similar problem:

Ubunbtu 10:04 64 on a old Dell Latitude D531
new install from a cd-rom, replacing xubuntu

After instal wi-fi needed some extra (unsupported drivers from Broadcom to be installed) Once these had been install and the laptop re-started a "no entry" sign appeared in the top navigation bar next to my network icon.

Clicking on this launches Update Manager - which then gives me a warning message:

"An unresolvable problem occurred while initializing the package information.

Please report this bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the following error message:

'E:Read error - read (5: Input/output error), E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'"

I have tried

$sudo apt-get --help

Which works fine

... but
$ sudo apt-get -f install

gives:

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Read error - read (5: Input/output error)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

$ sudo dpkg dpkg --configure -a

gives:

dpkg: failed in buffer_read(fd): copy info file `/var/lib/dpkg/status': Input/output error

any more suggestions for things that I can try?

Hi :)

Please post a new question about this
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+addquestion

Launchpad does not have a good way of handling old questions and does not bump threads in the way other forums do so people really need to post their own questions if existing ones are not quite enough to really help. Copy&paste is useful for doing this ;)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)