Ubuntu
software-properties package

  1. Bug #98795
  2. Comment #0

Comment 0 for bug 98795

Revision history for this message
folkoy (pluron) wrote : software-properties-gtk corrupted /etc/apt/source.list

Binary package hint: software-properties-gtk

After clean install of Ubuntu 7.04 Beta, update-manager ran and downloaded some package from the net and prompted me to insert CD-ROM to install updated. I didn't want to install packages from CD-ROM, I then clicked "cancel" and wanted to remove CD-ROM from the source.list by using "software sources" application to only specify internet as package source.

I Couldn't find how to remove CD-ROM from the selection in software-properties-gtk and didn't want to edit /etc/apt/source.list manually. I then tried to click few options here and there in software-properties-gtk application. In "Third-Party Software tab", there was no entries and still there is no entry. Then I quit software-properties-gtk application to retry update-manager.

update-manager wouldn't start and displayed the following error;
     "Could not initialize the package information
      A unresolvable problem occurred while initializing the package information.
     Please report this bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the following error message:
    'E:Malformed line 4 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list (dist parse), E:The list of sources could not be read.' "

After commenting out line 4 of /etc/apt/source.list the problem disappeared and update-manager ran fine. It seems like software-properties-gtk corrupted the source.list.

Here are the first 8 lines of /etc/apt/source.list [actual lines start after the :]
1:#
2:# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 7.04 _Feisty Fawn_ - Beta i386 (20070322.2)]/ feisty main restricted
3:
4:deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 7.04 _Feisty Fawn_ - Beta i386 (20070322.2)]/ feisty
5:# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
6:# newer versions of the distribution.
7:
8:deb http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted

it seems the line 4 misses "main restricted" at the end of the line. Also it's strange that line 4 seems to be the same as lthe commented line 2 except for the missing "main restricted". This /etc/apt/source.list was never edited manually.