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I would like to install dconf-editor on Ubuntu 17.04 64-bit. This tutorial suggests it should be pretty easy - running apt install dconf-editor should be sufficient. It does not work however and prints this message instead:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package dconf-editor

What happened to the dconf-editor package?


Additional details

  • apt-cache policy dconf-editor returns:

    N: Unable to locate package dconf-editor

  • apt update does not help.

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  • 1
    Is your source updated (apt update)? what is the output of apt-cache policy dconf-editor?
    – Ravexina
    Apr 24, 2017 at 19:42
  • 1
    what is the output of : grep "^deb " /etc/apt/sources.list
    – Ravexina
    Apr 24, 2017 at 19:50
  • Make sure the repository Universe is enabled at System settings > Software and updates
    – M. Becerra
    Apr 24, 2017 at 19:50
  • @Ravexina I guess you nailed it. I accidentally overwritten /etc/apt/sources.list and its missing the default repositories Apr 24, 2017 at 19:52

2 Answers 2

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If you have rmadison installed you can simply run:

rmadison dconf-editor | grep zesty

to find out if this package is available for zesty. here is my output:

 dconf-editor | 3.23.4-0ubuntu1 | zesty/universe   | source, amd64, arm64, ...

So it's there and it's in universe component; to find out if you have access to install it run:

apt-cache policy dconf-editor

If you get nothing, I guess something is wrong with your sources.list, run:

grep "^deb " /etc/apt/sources.list

to check your sources.list file; you should have some lines look like this:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ zesty-updates universe

If you dont, add them, update your sources; then install the program.

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It turns out that my /etc/apt/sources.list didn't have the default repositories - they must have been overwritten - and this is why I couldn't install anything with apt.

The solution is to restore the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list:

  1. If you're lucky then you've got a backup file /etc/apt/sources.list.save from which you can restore the list of repositories.

  2. Otherwise, I've found this website which is able to generate a list of repositories from scratch: https://repogen.simplylinux.ch/.

  3. Also as Ravexina added in the comments:

    You can also use this file to restore your sources: /usr/share/doc/apt/examples/sources.list, just change the codename and add your desired components.

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