[NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu upgrade question

Andrew argonaut at gmx.co.uk
Fri Jun 5 09:56:21 PDT 2009


Emanuel R wrote on Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:03:44 -0700:

> I apparently missed the deadline for the 7.10 repository
> support and now I am not able to download the latest software
> updates for 7.10.

When support ends for an Ubuntu release, that release is removed
from the regular Ubuntu repositories (as you have discovered),
but it doesn't disappear entirely. Instead, it gets put out to
pasture in Ubuntu's "old-releases" repository. It no longer gets
new security updates or bug fixes, but you can still access all
of the release's packages as they were on the last day of
support.

To do this, you'll need to edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file
(make a backup first). In it, you'll see lines like this:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-security main restricted universe multiverse

Change those to read:

deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-security main restricted universe multiverse

(You can also make these changes within a GUI package manager
such as Synaptic, if you prefer.)

Then update as usual and you will be as up-to-date with Gutsy as
you can be. After that, you can follow Kyle's recommendation and
upgrade to Hardy, then Intrepid, and finally Jaunty.

Good luck, and please let us know how it went.

By the way, for the Debian users on this list, Debian does the
same thing -- only their "pasture" is archive.debian.org, so the
lines in sources.list look like:

deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/debian/ $RELEASE main contrib non-free

A.



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