The solution above seemed promising, but when I got to su 32011, the response was No passwd entry for user '32011'.

Moving forward, I think i'm going to either run:

libertine-container-manager install-package -p PACKAGE-NAME

or, I'll run

libertine-container-manager exec -i CONTAINER-IDENTIFIER -c "COMMAND-LINE"

and once in here, I'll just run apt install PACKAGE-NAME. It feels more natural, to me, to get into the libertine shell and run apt commands, but I don't know if there's any benefit to the other method. I don't know that packages installed with apt are going to show in up the libertine GUI, but at this point, I'm going to try to avoid that GUI as much as possible. It's just not a viable way to install packages, if there's a chance the installation process will prompt the user, and there's no way to interact with the operation.

the libretine is a chroot libretine
chroot <librtine directory

Thank you for the clue but you have a problem with _ l i b e r t i n e _ spelling :beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Who is 32011 ?

BR
Pulsar33

just run

chroot <librtine directory  normally at : /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/xenial/rootfs >

and then run

su 32011
dpkg --configure -a

this should finish the installation of the package

The container installed fine but the package install process was just spinning with no activity in the log (the one provided by the system menu).

The interface would still successfully install and remove other packages, but the one was perpetually stuck.

Opening the file browser app and simply deleting the contents of the above listed folders (no terminal commands needed), and rebooting fixed the issue. It did delete the entire container though... so I'm glad there was no important data in it.

$ libertine-container-manager destroy -i xenial
Libertine.py:124: ERROR: _delete_rootfs(): [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'dev'

I logged in on phone via ssh and execute following commands:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ll ~/.cache/libertine-container/xenial/rootfs/
total 36
drwxr-xr-x 9 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:57 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 04:57 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:15 (??/
drwx--x--x 2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:15 able/
d--------- 2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 08:06 dev/
drwxr-xr-x 2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:15 ?kҶ/
drwxr-xr-x 2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:15 ?p⾛+,??G??D?Ӷ/
drwxr-xr-x 2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:15 R??/
drwxr-xr-x 2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 28 05:15 S??????????????/
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ rm -rf ~/.cache/libertine-container/xenial/rootfs/
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ libertine-container-manager destroy -i xenial
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$

There is no error after destroying container,
but, surprisingly, user-directory still existed.
So, I deleted it also:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ll ~/.local/share/libertine-container/user-data/xenial/
total 84
drwxrwxr-x 17 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 27 14:40 ./
drwxrwxr-x  3 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 06:35 ../
-rw-------  1 phablet phablet  984 Feb 28 05:16 .bash_history
drwxrwxr-x  8 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 15 11:28 .cache/
-rw-rw-r--  1 phablet phablet  418 Feb 28 05:18 .chromium-bsu
drwxrwxr-x  9 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 15 11:27 .config/
d---------  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 08:06 Documents/
d---------  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 08:06 Downloads/
drwxrwxr-x  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 31 04:50 .freegish/
drwx------  3 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 31 19:51 .gnome2/
drwx------  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 31 19:51 .gnome2_private/
drwxr-xr-x  3 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 16:05 .local/
drwx------  3 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 16:44 .mozilla/
drwxrwxr-x  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 31 04:53 .mu-cade/
d---------  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 08:06 Music/
drwxr-xr-x  3 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 07:59 .numptyphysics/
d---------  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 08:06 Pictures/
drwxrwxr-x  2 phablet phablet 4096 Feb 27 14:40 shared/
d---------  2 phablet phablet 4096 Jan 30 08:06 Videos/
-rw-------  1 phablet phablet 1124 Feb 19 01:51 .viminfo
-rw-rw-r--  1 phablet phablet   12 Jan 30 16:11 .Xdefaults
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ rm -rf ~/.local/share/libertine-container/user-data/xenial/
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$

Alright, I did find a file /home/phablet/.cache/libertine/puritine/PuritineSymlinkFarm.json and I deleted it. I don't know why I couldn't see it with find.

Yes I know I have to replace CONTAINER-IDENTIFIER with the identifier of my container, i.e. xenial.

~root refers to /root.

I have found the following text files which I deleted:
/.local/share/unity-scopes/unconfined/libertine-scope.ubuntu_libertine-scope/.surfacing_cache
/.local/share/unity-scopes/unconfined/clickscope/.surfacing_cache

But still no change, even after reboot. It seems that the container is very much contained and unbreakable! But don't worry, I am going to reinstall UT anyway.

Thank you to all for your help.

@doniks

Thanks doniks.

Before trying what you have suggested, I have installed the package xterm in my container. Then within this xterm I tried to locate the stuck installation process with ps although I have no idea if it should be visible from such a terminal or not.

well, I like to say ... you should see all running processes ... but then you say

But ps wouldn't run. I got a message asking me to try "mount -t proc /proc"

which surprises me ... not sure what that means

but either way, I think that's a separate problem. certainly there is no more stuck process after a reboot. so ps wouldn't help anyway.

which I did only to be told that the "-t" option could only be run as root. But I was refused to use both sudo and su.

well, not being able to su and sudo is normal. remember the whole container is created by phablet user, all files inside are owned by phablet

So I tried your solution. However there was no .json nor any .xml file within any directory. The command
# find / -iname "libertine" -print | egrep 'json|xml'
did not yield any result.

mhm, maybe it's called something else, and maybe it isn't even json or xml format, but it definitely is some human readable text file, just use cd and ls starting from /home/phablet/ and then one of .cache, .config, .local

I searched for a root ~/.cache/libertine-container/CONTAINER-IDENTIFIER/rootfs/ directory but couldn't find any.

you know you have to replace "CONTAINER-IDENTIFIER" with the identifier of your container, right?! show ls -l ~/.cache/libertine-container/

In fact, there is no .cache directory under ~root nor even under "/".

I don't know what ~root refers to. I am only talking about files and folders underneath /home/phablet

There is a "cache" directory (with no dot) under "/" but it has nothing relevant inside.

yeah that is unrelated

However I did find the container directory ~phablet/.local/share/libertine-container/user-data/xenial. So I deleted this entire directory.

ok. that was the home directory inside the container. one of the three things I think you should get rid of. good. now lets find the other two: config file and the root folder

Then I rebooted the device and when the Ubuntu logo appeared and I swiped sideways, no on-screen keyboard appeared to enter my pass code! I had to connect a mechanical keyboard through the USB port to do so...

wooow. that doesnt sound good. it doesn't sound like its related to libertine though. have you been messing with root access? it might be time to make sure your backups are up to date

Furthermore, the container still exists and the stuck installation process subsists with its silly blue spinning circle!!! Arghhhhh

I think I will end up reinstalling the whole operating system.

possible .... good luck!

Thanks doniks.

Before trying what you have suggested, I have installed the package xterm in my container. Then within this xterm I tried to locate the stuck installation process with ps although I have no idea if it should be visible from such a terminal or not. But ps wouldn't run. I got a message asking me to try "mount -t proc /proc" which I did only to be told that the "-t" option could only be run as root. But I was refused to use both sudo and su.

So I tried your solution. However there was no .json nor any .xml file within any directory. The command
# find / -iname "libertine" -print | egrep 'json|xml'
did not yield any result.

I searched for a root ~/.cache/libertine-container/CONTAINER-IDENTIFIER/rootfs/ directory but couldn't find any. In fact, there is no .cache directory under ~root nor even under "/". There is a "cache" directory (with no dot) under "/" but it has nothing relevant inside.
However I did find the container directory ~phablet/.local/share/libertine-container/user-data/xenial. So I deleted this entire directory.

Then I rebooted the device and when the Ubuntu logo appeared and I swiped sideways, no on-screen keyboard appeared to enter my pass code! I had to connect a mechanical keyboard through the USB port to do so... Furthermore, the container still exists and the stuck installation process subsists with its silly blue spinning circle!!! Arghhhhh

I think I will end up reinstalling the whole operating system.

@lakotaubp
$ libertine-container-manager destroy -i xenial
Libertine.py:124: ERROR: _delete_rootfs(): [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'dev'

strange. no clue what might cause this.

if you are ok to get rid of all containers and all else failed, you can delete manually. first find the file where the containers are configured. I can't remember the name, I think it's a json or xml file inside some dot folder in your home dir. something like .config/libertine/containers.json ... I'm just guessing the name from memory, but it is something like this. If you look for libertine in .local .config .cache, you'll find it. Look inside you'll see your containers. if you remove this file and the root and home folders of your containers: https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/dailyuse/libertine.html#locations then everything should be gone and you can start over

$ libertine-container-manager destroy -i xenial
Libertine.py:124: ERROR: _delete_rootfs(): [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'dev'