apt-get could not open lock file

Posted by user114373 on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by user114373
Published on 2012-12-12T22:40:05Z Indexed on 2012/12/12 23:20 UTC
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installation

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apt

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sudo

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root

I am trying to get an nfs client running on a Sheeva-plug running debian 2.6.22. The host is Ubuntu 12.04 and claims (from showmount -e) to be exporting the desired directory. There is no showmount binary in the sheeva-plug, so I'm trying to install it from the nfs-common package:

 # apt-get install nfs-common

The response ends with

 E: could not open lock file /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (no such file or directory)
 E: Unable to lock the download directory.

I am root while doing this. Similar errors arise when trying to install other packages.

How do I correct these errors so apt-get will do its work?

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