At first I thought it was a memory card corruption issue, so I fixed that. Turns out it was not, so don't send a million replies about that!

When I try to install apps, I get this constant error in the log:

dpkg-deb (subprocess): failed to exec tar: No such file or directory

so it appears that Tar is missing. I presume it is there on a standard install, and I've inadvertently uninstalled while trying to make space on my n810. It doesn't show up for installation in the app-manager, so I tried apt-get install tar, and it threatened to uninstall some 76 applications in the process. I said no...

I presume if I download Tar from the repository I can maybe slip it into usr/bin and things might work, but I'm wondering if someone has a better solution.

I could be wrong, but I think you probably removed busybox tar by installing a package from the SDK; don't do that.


In any event, the tar you need is in package busybox. If that package is installed, /bin/busybox should exist, and you should be able to (as root)

well, you are right about one thing - after checking, the sdk repo was enabled... not sure where that stroke of stupidity came from!

nonetheless the result of your command was not as to plan:

I suspect a re-flash would be the easiest way to fix, but since I've just got the tablet working more or less exactly as I need, perhaps I'll just forego updates in lieu of having to re-install all my apps.

then again, I'm still way open to having my ignorance paraded in front of me, so any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

It should already be a symlink to busybox.
It should exist, be executable, etc.

If those are both met, there's no obvious reason why you should get that error when execing tar, and I'll have run out of clue... If they're not, the solution will hopefully be self-evident.

OK! Fixed...

Turns out tar was linked to etc/alternative/tar - just deleted that and reapplied the link to busybox and it's all working again.

Thanks for the help...