[Solved] E: Unable to locate package in Kali Linux

Like other Linux distribution Kali Linux also needs a dedicated source to download and install the packages we need. By default, Kali Linux doesn’t come with the necessary source links.

We need to manually put the list of sources from where we want to install our required packages. If there is no sources list or bad sources list on the Linux system it will result in ‘E: unable to locate package‘ error.

This problem may comes due to bad internet connection. If the internet connection is not the problem then it might because for the wrong repository. We will solve this problem by going through the processes explained in this article.

First we need to go to our Kali Linux’s computer File system and navigate to etc/apt folder.

Right-click on the ‘sources.list‘ text file and open it with any text editor.

editing sources.list on mousepad

Delete if there is anything already wrote on the text file. Then copy and paste following lines there.

deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib

Then save and close it.

There is another way to do it more easily. We can use a single command to do all these works. We just need to open a terminal and run the following command:

echo "deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list

This command may ask the super user password (SuDo password) of the Kali Linux machine and fix the repository.

Now we need to update the system by using following command:

sudo apt-get update

Now it will start update and after update our problem is fixed.

So this is the most simple way to fix unable to locate package in Kali Linux.

Fix slow update/upgrade or install in Kali Linux

It will work for everyone if not then please comment down below. For more tutorial on Kali Linux visit our blog regularly and follow us on Twitter an Medium for quick update.

31 comments

Unknown July 11, 2020 6:22 am

thank you so much to solve my problem ….it really helps

Unknown August 6, 2020 10:50 pm

You are a life saver. Thanks it worked so well.

Unknown September 8, 2020 4:12 am

It didn't work Im on windows 10 unactivated

Unknown October 21, 2020 7:20 am

It is still showing the same.

Kali Linux October 21, 2020 1:15 pm

Not working? can you please explain the problem?

Kali Linux November 1, 2020 11:57 am

try command
sudo apt-get install php openssh git wget -y

Unknown November 9, 2020 3:41 pm

I have tried everything possible on the internet to solve out this problem but I still could not even come to close to solving it , can somebody please help!

Unknown December 4, 2020 8:44 pm

i can´t save the .text file, permission denied?! why?

Kali Linux December 5, 2020 3:13 am

You need to use sudo before the command. Thanks

Noob dave January 26, 2021 6:34 pm

I found a solution was to put apt in front of the install command.
Sudo apt install kali-linux-large
For example

Unknown March 29, 2021 5:28 pm

I am having trouble still with getting the Volatility package. "E: Unable to locate package Volatility" I have tried the sources.list but not sure what else to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Kali Linux March 30, 2021 3:40 am

isn't Volatility comes pre-installed with Kali Linux? Anyways Here you can read the official documentations of Volatility Installation.

Unknown June 24, 2021 10:09 am

its not working it says

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package zoom_i386.deb

i am workin 3 day on this problem plz resolve this

Kali Linux June 26, 2021 7:30 am

From the name of the package (zoom_i386.deb) we can guess some thing. It is the original 32 bit x86 architecture. Most desktop systems today are 64 bit systems and use the amd64 architecture. So please check your system architecture and try to install the correct installer for zoom.

Thanks.

Anonymous July 7, 2021 6:09 am

Still facing the problem

Kali Linux July 7, 2021 7:44 am

Can you describe the issue, then may be we can try to solve this.

Anonymous May 24, 2022 2:10 pm

Activate windows

Shaun W. November 5, 2022 8:45 pm

my Kali 2020.4 sources.list is fine. after sudo apt-get update then sudo apt install xllvnc I get E: Unable to locate package xllvnc.
I have 6 computers with 2020.4 installed the same way on same x64 system. Sometimes it installs sometimes it does not. Sometimes I wait a few days and it will install suddenly. I have a very good internet connection.
When it installs the sudo apt-get update displays dozens of lines. when it fails I get reading package lists,Building…,Reading. Just 3 lines.

Shaun W. November 5, 2022 9:06 pm

One more thing – apt search xllvnc returns xllvnc/kali-rolling 0.9.16-8+b1 amd64

Anonymous November 7, 2022 12:51 am

Check if you have enough memory to install some applications.

Anonymous November 7, 2022 12:53 am

Check this no need to search for x11 packages https://www.kali.org/docs/general-use/novnc-kali-in-browser/

Anonymous December 6, 2022 7:59 am

how to find a terminal?

Anonymous February 9, 2023 5:55 am

Still getting the GPG error

Anonymous March 22, 2023 1:28 pm

this was helpful thanks

Anonymous March 23, 2023 10:28 am

its not working it says

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package oletools

Anonymous March 24, 2023 3:07 am

Use command sudo -H pip install -U oletools. Hope this will work. Thanks.

Anonymous April 1, 2023 10:14 am

i think kali has some issues installing and saving directories

Anonymous July 3, 2023 3:15 pm

thanks this really helped alot.

Dieta E Dimagrimento August 16, 2023 8:28 am

I can't install Google Chrome. I am giving the command following the command shown by you but the same problem is appearing.

Anonymous August 19, 2023 1:46 am

Hi we have a separate article to install Google Chrome and Chromium. Please follow this link: https://www.kalilinux.in/2021/02/how-to-install-google-chrome-chromium.html

Anonymous February 16, 2024 4:13 pm

(yugant-kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ echo "deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib

┌──(yugant-kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo apt install code-oss-y
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
E: Unable to locate package code-oss-y

——————————————————————————
Did all the necessary things but not working.