I’m still a fairly new Linux-user (on Tuxedo OS), and I just ran into an issue that is new to me. If I try to update my system, either via command line or Discover, the apt update command fails. This is the output:

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock. It is held by process 1635 (apt-get)
N: Be aware that removing the lock file is not a solution and may break your system.
E: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/

Process 1635 is apt-get update run by root, and persists through restart. I am tempted to try to kill it (kill 1635), but I’m not sure if anything could break from that, so I thought I’d try to ask for help first before I do something stupid.

  • toasteecup@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    So my theory on what’s going on is this.

    I suspect that this is an automatically running update to try to help keep your packages up to date, and I think it’s getting stuck on a source configured in your /etc/apt/sources.list I’m willing to bet it’s likely a source configured to pull from a “CD” which is used during installation and they forgot to disable that one.

    You should be able to stop it, it’ll still be locked but you’ll need find the lock file (I forgot where it’s configured) and just remove it with a simple rm, you’ll probably need to sudo the rm though.

    So my order of operations would be, kill the process, try to rerun the apt update and see if that tells you which repo it’s getting stuck on.