Cannot install anything- (13 Permission denied)

[sirdouglas]

I have been spending the past hours trying to sort through this problem and just cannot find a solution.

My current version of Ubuntu is 8.10 and I just finished installing it (dual-boot XP). The update manager worked fine getting all the latest updates, but any command in the terminal for me to install something brings an error, for example:

sirdouglas@sirdouglas-laptop:~$ apt-get install vlc
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?

... and it's always the same error! I tried searched the net and tried so many different things that are supposed to fix this. Shouldn't it be a simple solution? Instead of wasting more hours getting nowhere, I thought I'd see if the good ol' community has any ideas for me. So, what can I do?

Thanks!

Doug

[lisati]

Have you closed the update manager?

[taurus]

And don't forget to include the sudo.


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlc

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

[sirdouglas]

Thank you so much, that was so simple!

Doug

[sirdouglas]

I still get the same error when I don't type "sudo" in front of it, but I can live with that right?

Thanks again,

Doug

[dragos_iliescu_2005]

There two options:
use of sudo each time you need or
configure you as root privileges - not recommanded -

[oldos2er]

I still get the same error when I don't type "sudo" in front of it, but I can live with that right?

That's working as designed.