Common Linux problems with their fixes. Not a usual post, but I thought that this might help some people. Yes, I know that Stack Overflow, Ask Ubuntu and bunch of other websites are made for this, but why not? I promise that I will post here every problem that I will face with its fix.

Comment below if you have a problem and I will try to help you and other people can also do that.
If you have arrived here from Google or any other search engine, press CTRL+F to find your problem!

Let’s start the list.

List of problems with their fixes

Problem: E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock – open

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?

Solution

Check that you don’t have any other software open, that can install packages, like Synaptic.
If not, run these:
sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
That should fix it.

Problem: Debian 9 | Ubuntu 17.10 | Wifi not connecting

Does your wifi seem to start the connecting, but it doesn’t in the end? I had this problem with Debian 9 and atheros wifi dongle.

Solution

Open up Network Managers configuration file. Run as root or sudo.
nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
Then add this to it.

[device]
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

Save and close, restart NetworkManager
systemctl restart NetworkManager

Problem: Kernel headers missing

If your kernel headers are missing in any Debian based system…

Solution

Check that your system is up to date and sources.list is fine.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)


Final words for Common Linux problems

I hope you’ve got more experienced here! Please keep in mind that this post might never be completely finished. I will add all common problems here and keep adding them till the apocalypse.

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