sudo apt-get update does not work?

I'm running newly installed Ubuntu 12.04 in my computer.

After the commandsudo apt-get update, my terminal shows the following message:

Reading package lists... Done

After that, nothing happens. What's wrong?

3 Answers

There is nothing wrong with your system: sudo apt-get update will only update the package list. To really update packages, you have to type: sudo apt-get upgrade afterwards as well!

edit:
let me add to this that sudo apt-get upgrade will finish with Reading state information... Done 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded if you already have installed all latest updates. When you already have installed all updates for your system, sudo apt-get upgrade will not reinstall stuff. If you get a message along the lines of x packages have been kept back, you should run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

This might be because your

/etc/apt/sources.list

is empty.

If so, Ubuntu Sources List Generator helps you get a default sources.list.

This Generator right now supports version later than 12.04.

Cheers!

If you are thinking of only updating, you can as well do it by using update manager.

Press the Superkey (Windows key) to launch the Dash and search for Update Manager