Ubuntu Linux system maintains a local database of packages that are available from the repositories defined in /etc/apt/sources.list, or in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. The apt package index can often become outdated as the packages contained in the repositories change, or new repositories are added to the system.
In order to update the local apt package index, you run:
$ sudo apt-get update
However, for various reasons you may encounter errors while updating the apt package index. Here are several ways to fix common apt-get update errors.
Hash Sum mismatch error
Failed to fetch gzip:/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_binary-amd64_Packages Hash Sum mismatch E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
This error can happen when fetching the latest repositories during “apt-get update” was interrupted, and a subsequent “apt-get update” is not able to resume the interrupted fetch. In this case, remove the content in /var/lib/apt/lists before retrying “apt-get update”.
$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* $ sudo apt-get update
404 Not Found error
If you are getting “404 Not Found” error, and you are using a rather old Ubuntu release, there is a chance that the 404 error occurs because your Ubuntu installation is no longer supported.
To find out whether this is the case, first check which Ubuntu release you are using, by running:
$ cat /etc/lsb-release
Then check out the “End of Life” date of your Ubuntu release by referring to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
If your release has reached end of life (EOL), you need to modify /etc/apt/sources.list as follows, in order to avoid 404 errors during apt-get update. Replace CODENAME with the codename of Ubuntu release that you are using.
# Required deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME main restricted universe multiverse deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME-updates main restricted universe multiverse deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME-security main restricted universe multiverse # Optional #deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ CODENAME-backports main restricted universe multiverse
