Thursday, May 19, 2011

Ubuntu Update Manager/Synaptic package manager error

While updating your Ubuntu distros using the Update Manager or while using the Synaptic Package Manager, if you ever encounter a error like


'E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, 
 E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/any name here,
 E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.'


The easiest thing to do is remove all the contents of the mentioned directory /var/lib/apt/lists/ and then populate the lists again.


1. Remove all the entries
       $ sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*
2. Populate the entries again
       $ sudo apt-get update


This is a short hand trick and do use it at your own risk.
But Linux is all about taking that little extra risk, right?

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