How to bring more attention to a non-duplicate

Question

My question on Ask Ubuntu was flagged as duplicate. The post that was said to be my dupe did not apply to my circumstances, so I edited my question and voted for its reopening.

1. How many votes do I have to get so my answer would be reopened?
2. Are there any other alternative ways to reopen questions?
3. Are there any ways I can bring more attention to a question other than bounties?

It is not that I am going to perish as a result of my question not being answered on AskUbuntu, but it would help a lot.

Answer 1

First a few words on how the reopening mechanism works. You can read more in the relevant Help Center article: What if I disagree with the closure of a question? How can I reopen it?

A closed question can be reopened either by the community or by a moderator. For a question to be reopened by the community, it needs to get 5 reopen votes. However, moderators can reopen any closed question single-handedly, without requiring the 5 votes.

There are two ways that the reopening process can be initiated for a closed question:

1. Either the OP (you in this case) or a user edits the question and checks the Submit for review option:

   

2. Either the OP or a user clicks the Reopen button right below the question, if they have the required reputation (3000 reputation points):

   

   The screenshot above is from your own question.

Both of the above ways lead to the question sent to a special queue, the Reopen votes queue. There the community votes to either reopen the question or leave it closed:

As you can see, your question currently has received 2 Reopen and 2 Leave Closed votes in the Reopen votes queue.

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Now, addressing your questions:

1. How many votes do I have to get so my answer would be reopened?

You need 5 reopen votes, as I described above. These votes should not be confused with upvotes or downvotes that a question has. As you can see in the screenshot of your question I shared above, your question had 3 reopen votes at the time the screenshot was taken.

2. Are there any other ways to reopen questions?

The two ways to reopen questions are described above. Additionally, if you have tried to reopen your question but it hasn't been reopened and you strongly believe that it should have, you can ask here or let us know in one of the two main chatrooms of the site: Raiders of the Lost Downboat, a room specifically used for moderation purposes (such as voting to reopen or close questions, flagging, etc.) or Ask Ubuntu General Room, a general-purpose room.

3. Are there any ways I can bring more attention to a question other than bounties?

You cannot add a bounty to a closed question, so adding a bounty is not really an option for your current case. What can, however, increase the chances of your question getting reopened is to edit it and explain clearly why you disagree with the closing reason, in this case with the question that your question is closed as a duplicate of. This way the reviewers will know that you have, for example, tried the suggestions in that question and that they haven't worked for you.

Answer 2

A. 1: You need 5 re-open votes. As soon as you edit your question, it goes into the "Reopen Queue" (https://askubuntu.com/review/reopen) where users can vote to reopen if your edit satisfied them that it isn't a duplicate.

A. 2:The only other alternative is coming here, as you have done. Note, however, that it won't be very well received if you just come to complain. If you post civil, reasonable questions as you have done here, it should be fine. Your only other option is to leave a comment addressed to one of the users who closed your question, telling them you have edited to clarify.

A. 3: Not really. A bounty is your best bet to call attention to a question.

Finally, in the specific case of your question, if you have activated the universe repositories as the output of your apt update suggests, please mention that explicitly in the question and explain how. Perhaps also show us the contents of your /etc/apt/sources.list. I had to search for the word universe in the output and that isn't easy to find.