failed installation and downloads.

[benon]

r
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

I get this message everytime i try to install any application,download updates, or open synaptic manager.I have run the following commands and this is what i got.Its not helping.

benon@benon-laptop:~$ dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: requested operation requires superuser privilege


benon@benon-laptop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 143G 84G 52G 62% /
varrun 1009M 104K 1009M 1% /var/run
varlock 1009M 0 1009M 0% /var/lock
udev 1009M 44K 1009M 1% /dev
devshm 1009M 24K 1009M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 1009M 38M 972M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile
gvfs-fuse-daemon 143G 84G 52G 62% /home/benon/.gvfs


benon@benon-laptop:~$ ls -la /boot
total 11104
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2009-03-07 06:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2009-03-25 19:36 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 422667 2008-06-18 21:11 abi-2.6.24-19-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80049 2008-06-18 21:11 config-2.6.24-19-generic
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-03-07 06:58 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7880976 2009-03-07 06:58 initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 103204 2007-09-28 13:06 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 905146 2008-06-18 21:11 System.map-2.6.24-19-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1920472 2008-06-18 21:11 vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic

benon@benon-laptop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 143G 84G 52G 62% /
varrun 1009M 104K 1009M 1% /var/run
varlock 1009M 0 1009M 0% /var/lock
udev 1009M 44K 1009M 1% /dev
devshm 1009M 24K 1009M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 1009M 38M 972M 4% /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile
gvfs-fuse-daemon 143G 84G 52G 62% /home/benon/.gvfs



please help. And what is a superuser privilage anyway?

[cariboo]

Have you tried running:


sudo dpkg --configure -a

Jim