How to fix: can’t install third-party apps on Ubuntu 16.04. Having trouble installing third-party .debs on Ubuntu 16.04 – GNOME Software does not install third-party .deb packages – here’s how to fix it.
Many users cannot install third-party .debs on Ubuntu 16.04. When they double-click on a .deb installer it opens the Software installer package, but when you click the “install” button it does nothing – cannot install third-paty apps on Ubuntu 16.04.
The bug description says:
I opened the packages one by one with gnome-software and pressed Install – nothing, except for a super-quick progress bar animation, happened. No matter how many times I tried, same result. Also, an icon pops up on the panel saying “Waiting to install”, but nothing seems to happen. This only seems to happen with third-party packages; installing a random deb from packages.ubuntu.com/xenial worked. I even tried to reinstall the system to make this work, but same problem. Gdebi, however, installs the packages as expected.
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-software/+bug/1573206
Fix The Error
Gnome-Software Package in Ubuntu – https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-software
gnome-software: Software Center for GNOME
gnome-software-common: Software Center for GNOME (common files)
gnome-software-dbgsym: debug symbols for package gnome-software
ubuntu-software: Utility for browsing, installing, and removing software
The fix for the bug has been released for the Ubuntu 16.04 repository and will be dispatched into the main repositories very quickly. The update will enable other changes:
- support for apt:// URLs;
- increased the number of displayed reviews from 10 to 30;
- GNOME Software now displays version and size information for non-installed applications;
- enabled the Snappy backend.
Quick Fix
If you don’t want to wait and want to install third-party apps using .deb files on Ubuntu 16.04 right now, follow the steps given below:
Once you have downloaded a .deb (into your Downloads folder). Open Terminal and run the following commands:
cd /Downloads
sudo dpkg -i APP.deb
sudo apt-get -f install