Howto fix "E: Archive directory /var/cache/apt/archives/partial is missing" error.

I was running low on disk space so I went and downloaded baobab a visual tool to show how muh space is being occupied by various directories on the file system. I saw that the /var/cache/apt/archives was using up a lot of space and since most of the directory  contents were .deb files I decided to delete this files, the next day I tried running apt and got the error

“E:Archive directory /var/cache/apt/archives/partial is missing.”

To fix this error make sure you recreate the archives folder as well as the partial folder. open a console window and type

1. cd /var/cache/apt

2. Type ls check to make sure archives folder is displayed in case you dont see the archives folder create the folder

 sudo mkdir archives if you already have the archives folder then skip this step.

3. type cd archives , create the partial folder by typing sudo mkdir partial

4.   type sudo apt-get autoclean to make sure apt is working properly.

Thats it you should now be able to get apt to work properly.

How-to fix errors with the .dmrc file

After using Ubuntu over the last 30 days without any errors or problems I encountered an error “User’s $HOME/.dmrc” file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permission. User $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users” after logging in today.

I tried googling for a fix, most sites asked me to change the file permissions to 644 as stated in the error message. I tried this fix and it did not work. After some more searching I came across this French site which had the solution.

To fix this error try the following

1. open a console window and at the prompt type the following to change the file permissions and hit enter

chmod 644 ~/.dmrc

2. type the following command to change the ownership of the file and hit enter

sudo chown your_login_name /home/your_login_name/.dmrc

3. The final step is to assign permissions on the home directory such that it is accessible only to you ( this step is very important)

sudo chmod 700 /home/your_login_name

This should fix the problem and you should never see the error message again.