How To Pause/Resume Installations Using Terminal in Ubuntu

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the process of pausing and resuming installations using the Terminal in Ubuntu. This can be particularly useful when you’re dealing with large installations and need to manage your system’s resources effectively.

Understanding the Terminal

The Terminal, also known as the command line, is a powerful tool that allows you to interact with your system directly. It’s capable of performing a wide range of tasks, from basic file management to complex system configurations. In this context, we will be using it to manage software installations.

Pausing an Installation

To pause an ongoing installation, you need to use the Ctrl+z command. This command stops the current process and moves it to the background. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Start an installation process in the Terminal. This could be anything from installing a new software package to updating your existing software.
2. While the installation is ongoing, press Ctrl+z on your keyboard. This will immediately pause the installation and return control to the Terminal.

Please note that you should only pause the process while it’s in the downloading state, not while it’s installing the downloaded packages. Pausing during the installation state can cause a lock on the package manager, which may require a system restart or reconfiguration to resolve.

Resuming an Installation

To resume a paused installation, you use the fg command. This command brings a background process to the foreground, allowing it to continue. If you have multiple tasks running in the background, you can specify which one to resume by adding the job number after fg, like so: fg 1.

Here’s how you can resume a paused installation:

1. In the Terminal, type fg and press Enter. This will resume the most recent background process.
2. If you have multiple background processes and want to resume a specific one, use fg followed by the job number. For example, fg 1 would resume the first background process.

Handling Accidental Terminal Closure

If you accidentally close the Terminal while an installation is ongoing, don’t worry. The system should automatically resume the download when you run the command again. However, if you want to start another process after pausing the first one, you can use the following commands to unlock the package manager:

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock

These commands remove the lock files that prevent new installations from starting. After running these commands, you can start a new installation process.

Conclusion

The ability to pause and resume installations in the Terminal is a powerful feature of Ubuntu. It allows you to manage your system’s resources more effectively and handle large installations with ease. Remember to only pause installations during the download phase and to use the fg command to resume paused installations. If you accidentally close the Terminal, simply run the installation command again to resume the download.

By mastering these commands, you can take full control of your software installations and ensure that your system runs smoothly, even when dealing with large software packages.

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock