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I tried running sudo apt-get update and got this error:

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

E: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/

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

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

I read the answers already posted for the same error and tried:

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo dpkg --configure -a

After this it just goes to installing dropbox somehow and doesnt stop or let me use apt to download anything else. Any idea what is going on? Thanks for helping!

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  • as suggested in the answer make sure when you update/upgrade packages you don't have other softwares running like Synaptic Package Manager etc..
    – JoKeR
    Jun 9, 2015 at 18:50

1 Answer 1

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Usually this happens if your install crashed in the middle of something and you need to finish, or if your trying to run apt twice on the same machine.

First make sure that apt is not running anywhere else on the computer. If it's not then run sudo dpkg --configure -a and let it finish installing what ever it wants. After it's done then you can go back and remove what you don't want.

For your question, it sounds like you installed dropbox (or tried to) at some point in the past, and it failed or was interrupted. Now when you run sudo dpkg --configure -a your telling it to configure everything not configured (i.e. finish what you started). You need to let it finish before you can move on.

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