Unable to install package through apt-get

Question

This kind of an error I'm facing:

root@ubuntu-pc:~# reaver
The program 'reaver' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
apt-get install reaver

root@ubuntu-pc:~# sudo apt-get install reaver

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree       

Reading state information... Done

E: Unable to locate package reaver

root@ubuntu-pc:~#

Solution

In software-properties-gtk make sure the universe repository is checked (alternatively you can check /etc/apt/sources.list to verify you have the universe repositories enabled). After that run sudo apt-get update.

You can verify the package is there with apt-cache policy reaver, which should give output like,

reaver:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.4-2
  Version table:
     1.4-2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/universe amd64 Packages

showing you that the universe repository is now available. Now you should simply be able sudo apt-get install reaver.

Otherwise it could be that this time you installed a version older than 12.10 (perhaps 12.04?). Looking at the launchpad page, I only see builds for 12.10 and later: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/reaver