Problem installing TeamViewer for Linux in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Question

New convert from Windows 10 to Ubuntu so be gentle with me!!!

I do work in IT support but have no experience with Linux other than just installing Ubuntu.

I am trying to install Teamviewer for Linux as I'm in UK and my girlfriend is on Windows 10 machine in USA and I need to remote onto her machine.

I have successfully downloaded the .deb 15.5.3 package from https://download.teamviewer.com/download/linux/teamviewer_amd64.deb

I have opened the terminal and ran

$ cd /home/pete/Downloads
~/Downloads$ sudo apt install ./teamviewer_15.5.3_amd64.deb

but it returns the following errors...

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies.
 messengerfordesktop : Depends: libappindicator1 but it is not installed or
                                libappindicator but it is not installable or
                                libappindicator-gtk3 but it is not installable
                       Depends: gconf2
                       Depends: gconf-service
                       Depends: python
                       Recommends: hunspell
                       Recommends: git
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I have tried apt --fix-broken install but get the following errors

$ apt --fix-broken install
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), are you root?

HELP!!!

Thanks

Kind regards

Pete

messengerfordesktop and teamviewer are not the same application. What was real output of sudo apt install ./teamviewer_15.5.3_amd64.deb? — N0rbert, May 02 '20 at 19:13
Does this answer your question? How do I enable the "Universe" repository?. Looks like your uninstallables are in -universe. Reminder: You can have only ONE package manager open at a time (that's what the 'lock' error is about). — user535733, May 02 '20 at 19:16
@user535733 the lock error is probably due to him not running apt --fix-broken install as root. Note the lack of sudo in front of it. — vidarlo, May 02 '20 at 19:31
Does this answer your question? Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/) is another process using it? — karel, May 03 '20 at 00:58
Thanks guys. I had already successfully installed messenger for desktop and has been running fine. Those errors are exactly as it appeared in the terminal. So if I ran sudo apt --fix-broken install, that would work? Not sure about universe, I'll have to read up on that aspect — Peter Rogers, May 03 '20 at 21:25

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 04 '20 at 08:51

You should use sudo after now for every command or just enter as sudo typing sudo su.

Ok, you just need to first install the package, and then fix dependencies.

Install the package using sudo dpkg -i "whereisthepackage". (if you typed before sudo su, sudo won't ask you the password, because you are logged in as root. To exit from this behavior, and regret to your account, you just need to type exit and you will be on you account.)

Then fix the dependencies by typing sudo apt install --fix-broken. Add -y to the end of the command if you don't want to be asked if yes or not install some packages.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '20 at 15:47

apt is primarily designed for installing programs from the online repositories. For installing local DEB packages from the command-line, the default program is dpkg. However, I'd recommend the gdebi program from the gdebi-core package instead of dpkg. It is similar to dpkg however unlike dpkg it automatically resolves the necessary dependencies before installing.

To install gdebi, run sudo apt install gdebi-core.

To install your local DEB package, now run sudo gdebi <PackageName>.deb. Make sure to replace <PackageName> with the actual name of the package.

Problem installing TeamViewer for Linux in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

2 Answers2