I don't understand the error displayed when I run the“ sudo apt-instal”l command?

Question

I am very new to Ubuntu and when I try to install emacs it shows error: I am running Ubuntu in virtual box.the error is shown below

talha@talha-Virtualbox::~$ sudo apt-get install emacs23
reading package lists ... done
building dependancy tree
reading state information ... done 
E:unable to locate package emacs23

how to correct the problem?

Answer 1

You need to run sudo apt-get update first. This command downloads the index of the repository (See What does "sudo apt-get update" do?). It should have been run automatically during installation, but if for some reason you weren't online, it might not have happened yet.

Answer 2

Your command means "find a package named emacs23 and install it".

E:unable to locate package emacs23

means that the system that is looking for the package (apt), cannot find it. There is no reference to this package.

This could mean several things

1. the package does not exist: this is not the case for you, as this package does exist.
2. the package does exist, but not in any source you are using. This could be the case, but isn't very likely: it is present in the basic sources you probably have. You could, if all else (meaning the next point) fails, try and check out what sources you are using.

3. You didn't update your apt. For apt to know what it can do with current sources, it needs to know what packages are available. You do this by typing the apt-get update command (possibly using sudo, making it:

   sudo apt-get update
   

   now it knows what packages are available, and if you don't run in to problems 1 or 2, you'll be set to go.