A really quick fix that took a while

I’ve been using Linux in one form of computer or another since 2004.  It was at an ISTE conference that I attended a poster session (I was the only one; everyone else was at Apple or Microsoft based sessions) and the gentleman gave me a demo and a CD to install when I got home.

I got home; made an old computer dual bootable and haven’t looked back.  I’ve played with a number of distributions and currently am using Linux Mint on this computer and love it.  Everything is so stable and reliable compared to what’s on the other side of the hard drive.  

I also recognize that I’m not the nerdy type that compiles my own, etc. etc. but that’s OK.  If there’s one thing that Linux stands for, it’s freedom.

One of the very best things about Linux is that it can be configured to check for updates for every program on your computer at bootup.  With the move to operating system stores, this seems to be becoming adopted everywhere and I think that’s a great thing.  You should be running the latest and most secure of everything.

Anyway, since 2004, updates come along and I just acknowledge to the Update Manager to do its thing while I work on whatever it is that I want.  There’s no begging me to quit the application that I’m using so that it can be updated.  It just happens at next launch.

So, life was good until a couple of days ago when Update Manager refused to go any further until I fixed something.

Repository ‘https://deb.opera.com/opera-beta stable InRelease’ changed its ‘Origin’ value from ‘Opera Software ASA’ to ‘Opera Software AS’

How much difference could one lousy A make?  Well, it was enough to stop everything.

I put my years of training on Windows into action and rebooted the computer.  Same thing.  I deleted the offending program Opera and reinstalled.  Same thing.

So, apparently all this experience in the past wasn’t going to cut it.  I looked around the Update Manager with every menu and option I could find.  I struck out.

I was almost prepared to just delete Opera and continue to use Firefox, Chromium, or Vivaldi instead.  But that’s admitting defeat – an action I seldom like to take.

Then, from the depths of my memory, I went back to life on the command line.  It is a skill that more often than not has been replaced by some button on a GUI somewhere.  In particular, I started to wonder if the answer lied in using the APT command.

And, I was right!  It was just a matter of running “apt update” as superuser.

Oh, and replying y (not the default) to allow the change to be made to my system.  

Update Manager runs smoothly again.

So, there’s my visible thinking for today.  And, I’ll add the blogging component to make a record to myself should this ever happen again.  Eighteen years it was until I needed to solve this problem.  Who knew?

Just for one lousy, stinking “A”.