Ok guys have couple different problems here. First off I know nothing of Linux. Girlfriend got dell inspiron 1210 for birthday. Since shes had it it has never been updated. Updating never works. The update manager pops up and says your system is up-to-date. The package information was last updated 548 days ago. so i click on check, the download bar gets 109 files and then goes into the next window "could not download all repository indexes". It list 4 things (actually 3 one i just added when trying to install firefox (has to do with next problem) 1. failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/binary-lpia/Packages.gz 404 not found 2. failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/universe/binar/lpia/Packages.gz 404 not found 3. failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/restricted/binary-lpia/Packages.gz 404 not found. The second problem is the last time i tried to update (which was about a week ago) it messed up a web browser i think thats the actual name of the browser but in other words the default browser. by turning the blue globe picture in the panel to a launch pad then back to blue globe and everytime i try to open a web browser it reads: Could not launch application Failed to execute child process ^abrowser^ (no such file or directory) except the arrows pointing up at the beginning and the end of abrowser are pointing down. So i don't know what to do i am pretty sure its not too hard of a fix but like i said i know nothing of linux never used it. Thanks for the help guys.
8.04 is no longer supported, so don't know that you'll be able to do a great deal with it. The "8" means it was released in 2008, ".04" means April. 10.10 gets released in just over a week, installation is really easy, I'd suggest holding off for just a little bit, download the new version and start from scratch. Linux has come a long way in the last two and a half years!
Think 8.04 was the last time I even looked at buntu.. it was kinda broken in ways I didn't like. found out arch doesn't like my grafix card.. at all.. grafix/monitor combo refuses to work with even the same modules and settings as deb.. I got fed up in the end and wiped it.. system now runs dragonfly BSD why use mono bloated buntu anyways?.. the debian community are far nicer and there is way more software (that works out of the box).. bigger community of professionals = better fixes but more hands on learning curve.. of course if you were a debian user you wouldn't have been stumped by an end of support problem and having to post somewhere which isn't the buntu forums.. where ALL buntu things should be directed in the first place.
Well i've tried updating to the 10. whatever it is but it can't update simply put. So i don't know what to do with it i've been looking for a system restore or something like it to take it back a week from when it tried to update and messed everything up.
Don't use the update function, I don't even trust it to upgrade from one version to the very next, let alone leapfrog over 4 intermediate ones. Just download the installer and start from scratch. You did say that the machine had been barely used, so shouldn't have anything on there to backup or lose anyway.
here we go.. typical 8.x setup no doubt.. doze like.. everything on /root been updating this one since woody days and never lost my settings or data.. but we all know debian seems to be good at updating and upgrades without breaking things.. must be built by professionals (or a closer approximation thereof) even so.. what's the harm in editing the sources file and trying a dist-upgrade? .. I jumped one from sarge to squeeze and the only big annoyance was with evolution.. it worked but ....
