Command line assistance needed, please!

[cousinlucky]

Every day my computer notifies me that I have duplicate files in:
/var/lib/apt/lists
When I look in the file there are indeed duplicates. In suse 10 I just have to log in as root and I could deal with the files. In Ubuntu I have to use a command in the terminal. Can someone please give me the command to open up this file using the terminal? Thanks!

[MikeTbob]

Well, you could try nano, it's a text editor.

cd /var/lib/apt/lists

sudo nano filename

That'll give you root permissions so be careful.

[cousinlucky]

MikeTbob,
I got a box that said:[ "/var/lib/apt/lists" is a directory ]
below that were symbols like^R for read but none of the symbols worked?

Is there another method?

[MikeTbob]

/var/lib/apt/lists
is a directory, but there are files in it right?
use the ls command to list the contents of a directory
ls
Now that you know the name of the file, you can open it.
sudo nano filename
Where filename is the name of the file you want to open.
The ^R and so forth, is just the commands for nano, ^R means use Cntrl R for Read file, ^X means use Cntrl X to exit.

If you have multiple files of the same name in the directory then you might want to rename or just delete them.

[cousinlucky]

Thanks MikeTBob!! I was advised on another forum that I can gain root access to all of my Ubuntu files by going into the terminal and typing gksudo nautilus. That worked for me and I got rid of the pesky extra file.

[saivin]

Every day my computer notifies me that I have duplicate files in:
/var/lib/apt/lists

Hi Mike,
What are these files in /var/lib/apt/lists? What do they do? How do you know if you have duplicate entries?
The below are what I have in my /var/lib/apt/lists:

ftp.iitm.ac.in_debian_dists_lenny_contrib_binary-i386_Packages
ftp.iitm.ac.in_debian_dists_lenny_contrib_source_Sources
ftp.iitm.ac.in_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages
ftp.iitm.ac.in_debian_dists_lenny_main_source_Sources
ftp.iitm.ac.in_debian_dists_lenny_Release
ftp.iitm.ac.in_debian_dists_lenny_Release.gpg
ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_contrib_binary-i386_Packages
ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages
ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release
ftp.us.debian.org_debian_dists_lenny_Release.gpg
lock
partial
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_contrib_binary-i386_Packages
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_contrib_source_Sources
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_main_binary-i386_Packages
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_main_source_Sources
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release
security.debian.org_dists_lenny_updates_Release.gpg
volatile.debian.org_debian-volatile_dists_lenny_volatile_contrib_binary-i386_Packages
volatile.debian.org_debian-volatile_dists_lenny_volatile_contrib_source_Sources
volatile.debian.org_debian-volatile_dists_lenny_volatile_main_binary-i386_Packages
volatile.debian.org_debian-volatile_dists_lenny_volatile_main_source_Sources
volatile.debian.org_debian-volatile_dists_lenny_volatile_Release
volatile.debian.org_debian-volatile_dists_lenny_volatile_Release.gpg