Could not find package gdebi

Question

It seems like a lot of folks have had problems installing 3rd party software with the Software Center. The usual suggestion is to install and use gdebi instead. However, when I try to do that I get an error:

sudo apt-get install gdebi
E: could not find package gdebi

I'm running a new installation of 16.04 LTS desktop installed on a USB drive.

So how do I work around this?

Solution

sudo apt-get install gdebi-core

Note that in general you can search for packages using:

apt-cache search <search_term>

So for example:

apt-cache search gdebi

returns info on the gdebi-core, gdebi (GNOME GUI), and gdebi-kde (KDE GUI) packages.

Comments

[rancho]

Try changing the Ubuntu download server to a different country. The current server may be down

[coondawg]

Not familiar with the different repositories or apt in general. In previous forays into Ubuntu I could get 99% of what I wanted from Software Center and the other 1% was apt-get install that worked first time. I will research and post update. BTW, the accepted answer below works as far as installing gdebi. Just wish the Software app would work.

[coondawg]

Well, sometimes you actually do get what you wish for! I don't know how or why but after installing gdebi, Ubuntu Software works. Yeah!