Cannot install Grub Customizer

Support & Help Requests
1

Hello,

I tried to install Grub Customizer in 17.10 Beta 1 with the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt update
sudo apt install grub-customizer

This is what I get after writing sudo apt install grub-customizer

Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

2

This might help:

https://www.tecmint.com/fix-unable-to-lock-the-administration-directory-var-lib-dpkg-lock/

3

I wonder if he tied to do it entirely from the run application prompt? sudo should be intelligent enough to discover a command was not executed from terminal but that’s why we have gksu, just to be sure.

The other thing that might be happening is the user opening a new tab because apt update was taking too long. Else I don’t know what other operator errors might cause that.

4

gksu is removed from Ubuntu MATE 17.10. Debian have dropped it entirely and Ubuntu will soon follow.

caja-admin has replaced caja-gksu and allows to to launch Caja windows and Pluma edits via PolicyKit.

5

Xubuntu must be ahead of the curve then because gksu is not to be seen there.

6

This usually happens when you already have a package manager running. Could be the MATE Store (or similar software), Synaptic, Update Manager, an APT process… Be sure to check this before you manually delete the lock.

7

I ran the first line " ps -A | grep apt " and got no list of apt or apt-get processes so it seems there is no process to be killed.

I tried to install Grub Customizer again and noticed something I did not notice before: after the line "sudo apt update" I get the following:

Err:18 Index of /danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu artful Release
_ 404 Not Found_
_Reading package lists... Done _
E: The repository 'Index of /danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu artful Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

8

Well, if you go on the page of the PPA and check the “Published in” drop menu, you’ll notice that it’s not available for Artful (17.10), only for Zesty (17.04) at best.

You can try to use the Zesty version of the PPA (just edit the repo .list file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d and change “artful” to “zesty” inside), it should work if the packages it hosts don’t have too specific dependancies. Or you’ll have to find another way to install it (different PPA, build from source…).

1 Like
9

Thanks, I will try that when I am back home

10

Can confirm this works; just open the file as sudo in pluma or nano and change artful to zesty.

11

Thank you for helping

I am a Linux/Ubuntu MATE newbie and not very computer savvy. I try to solve by myself the problems that I encounter by using the search option and reading the forum pages but I did not find this file. Where is it located?

Thanks.

12

I don’t know the name of the file as I don’t use that repo and it’s generated when added through APT. Check in /etc/apt/sources.list.d ( / being the system root, you can go in it with the “Filesystem” shortcut in Caja’s left panel) and you should see a .list file with a name probably like “danielrichter2007-ubuntu-grub-customizer.list”.

When you have the right name, open it with Pluma as admin:

sudo pluma /etc/apt/sources.list.d/danielrichter2007-ubuntu-grub-customizer.list

(Replacing the correct name in the command, obviously.)

13

Thank you terzag

I have found and opened the file and this is how it looks like.

Screenshot at 2017-09-09 17-52-09.png1080Ă—566 53.9 KB

Should I edit the first line only and if so to:

deb Index of /danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu zesty main

What are the lines 2,3 and 4 starting with deb - src http... ?

14

A line starting with a # is a comment and won’t be treated by APT. It’s an easy way to disable a repository without deleting the line.

  • First line (deb address) is the main repository.
  • Second line (disabled) is the source repository (deb-src address), i.e. a second repo that contains the source code packages for the ones in the main repo. Source packages are used only when you need to build some software from scratch, developement and such, that’s why they’re usualy disabled by default, they’re not used by typical users.
  • Third and fourth line are, for some reason, duplicates of the second line. They’re not supposed to be here, you can remove them.

So, edit the file so that the content looks like this:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu zesty main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu zesty main

You don’t really have to change “artful” to “zesty” in the second line as the source repo is disabled but just in case you need to enable it someday, you won’t have issues due to mismatch between both.

As a sidenote, the name of the .list file itself has no importance, you don’t need to rename it to something like “danielrichter2007-ubuntu-grub-customizer-zesty.list” (unless it’s easier for you to remember that it’s been switched to zesty). Only the content matters.

15

It’s done!!

I have successfully installed Grub Organizer and more important, I have learned a lot.

Thank you very much again for helping.