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I get exactly this same error as this Sir over here. There is solution given:

cd ~/Downloads
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

What worries me more is that Brackets (by Adobe), Opera (by Opera), Chrome (by Google) are also considered bad quality. I could understand that sometimes it can go wrong, but these are three (one medium, two gigantic) companies, and all of their packages are considered of bad quality.

Bad Quality in Linux means:

To make sure that packages we install using the Software Center are free of errors and Debian policy violations they are checked using Lintian. Only then the installation of a package will be granted.

That means, there's nothing wrong with their packages but with my verification software. I can't imagine that these three corporations compiled their packages incorrectly. Is there a way to check that without reinstalling the entire Linux (using Ubuntu right now)?

Edited by Aeonix
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Dani AI

Generated

Short summary and practical checks

This almost never means Chrome/Opera/Brackets shipped broken packages. The log shown by points at an extraction failure (the archive tool couldn’t read the .deb), which normally means the downloaded file is truncated, was saved as an HTML error page, or otherwise isn’t a valid ar archive — not that big vendors consistently produce malformed packages.

Quick diagnostic commands to run on the downloaded file:

ls -lh package.deb
file package.deb
ar -t package.deb
dpkg-deb --info package.deb
sha256sum package.deb
lintian package.deb

What those tell you and next steps

  • If file reports HTML or the size is tiny, the download is the problem. Re-download from the vendor page and confirm the browser finished the transfer (no .part/.crdownload leftover).
  • If ar -t fails or shows no debian-binary/control.tar.*/data.tar.*, the archive is corrupt; re-download.
  • If the package structure is OK but lintian lists policy warnings, that’s different: warnings don’t always block installation, but Software Center may refuse or hide details. Running lintian manually gives the full text.
  • Prefer official vendor repositories (Chrome/Opera provide apt repos) or a local installer that resolves deps (for example, gdebi or apt’s local install feature) rather than relying on Software Center’s UI.

Notes and caution
The Software Center’s “Ignore and Install” behavior and the unknown/triangle icon usually mean the UI aborted because the file couldn’t be verified or extracted. Reinstalling the OS is unnecessary. Verify the file first; if it looks valid and problems persist, install via the vendor repo or a command-line installer to get clearer error output.

Member Avatar for Aeonix

The error it prompted:

Lintian check results for /home/aeonix/Downloads/opera-stable_29.0.1795.47_amd64.deb:
/usr/bin/ar: /tmp/temp-lintian-lab-NWwyABKZNo/pool/o/opera-stable/opera-stable_29.0.1795.47_amd64_binary/deb: No such file or directory
E: opera-stable: malformed-deb-archive ar error: *main::STDERR

When I choose for "Ignore and Install", nothing happens, and Ubuntu Software Center changes logo of product to a question mark inside of reversed (up-side-down) white triangle with thick red border.

It seems like the temp-linitian-lab-* folder is deleted before/while Lintian does whatever it needs to do. I'm not expert of Linux though.

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