[SOLVED] Installer Already Running Problem

[Hansophobia]

I recently installed Hardy Heron after five years of procrastination from installing the Linux OS. I absolutely love it, although I have a problem installing files, as I always get an error when trying to install anything, either from the terminal, add/remove applications software, or the package installer. It states this:

Only one software management tool is allowed to run at the same time
Please close the other application e.g. 'Update Manager', 'aptitude' or Synaptic' first.

Now, to my knowledge, I have none of these programs running, so I find this quite confusing. If anybody could offer any fixes, that would be a helpful step on my way to obsession with this wonderful distro/os.

[smolloy]

If Update Manager is running, you should see a little icon in the top right of your desktop to indicate this. It should only take a few moments to do what ever you're it's doing, and then it will close down and allow you to open up synaptic.

If that's not the problem, and you're sure that you don't have a package manager open, then I'm stumped. I hate to suggest it, but a reboot might solve your problem.

[Hansophobia]

If that's not the problem, and you're sure that you don't have a package manager open, then I'm stumped. I hate to suggest it, but a reboot might solve your problem.

It wasn't the problem, and I am still have problems. Thanks for your help man, but I still haven't gotten it fixed. Anybody else have any possible fixes?

[Jonathan183]

Have you tried using ps to check which processes are running on your system?

[Hansophobia]

No, but I have been using the 'System Monitor' application. What does PS stand for?

And by the way, thank you guys very much for helping me out with this. It is quite confusing for not on me, and you guys are being quite nice about it.

[Jonathan183]

If you type

man ps

this explains what the command is and options you can use. If you did not know

man any_command_you_want_information_on

will usually give a description and useful information. If you want further information on a command then

info any_command

will usually give additional information.

You can open a terminal from the menus select applications->accessories->terminal

[Hansophobia]

Thanks guys for teaching me all this stuff. It was quite useful, but, alas, I am still having problems with installation.

Since I just got ubuntu relatively recently, should I just not bother with it, and instead reinstall it, and do a full disk wipe?

[Jonathan183]

No ... which processes do you have running ... if you have update-manager running this is what is stopping you installing software. You can check this with ps or system monitor. Do you have it running?

Ed: also check if you have synaptic or apt-get running using system monitor.

[Hansophobia]

I have none of those running.

[Jonathan183]

do you have gnome-app-installer running?

Can you post the output of

ps -e