E: sun-java6-jre: Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should reinstall it before attempting a removal.

[Jake Cozens]

Binary package hint: update-manager

Binary package hint: update-manager

Cannot upgrade - got the following in a dialog

"Software index is broken -
It is impossible to install or remove any software. Please use the package manager "Synaptic" or run "sudo apt-get install -f" in a terminal to fix this issue at first."

I'm unable to reinstall or remove the sun-java6-jre package in synaptic and when inputting the above command in a terminal I get:

$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
  sun-java6-jre
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/cache/apt/archives/

I'm using 10.10 - the Maverick Meerkat

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

Remove the lock file by typing:

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock

After that retry removing the java package.