Ubuntu Feisty Upgrade - Just Ask Matt

Today, Larry writes:

Hello Matt:
I have been using Ubuntu 6.10 for a little while on a duel boot with XP Home. I recently upgraded to the new Ubuntu fawn 7.04( the new kernel) . Now the add software and upgrade is broken and gives me error message’s.. What do I do??? Any way to roll back to 6.10 or uninstall and reinstall new Distro? Also what happened to the alliance with Linspire and Ubuntu and the use of CNR? Thanks for your time..

Please let me know,
Larry

Hi Larry,

It sounds like you followed the path that Ubuntu recommended and went with an upgrade installation rather than doing a fresh installation. Because of this, I suspect that you may have not known that it is still trying to install software from sources that relate to the previous version. While I have never tried the “upgrade” myself, I believe the switch leaves your software repository information targeting Edgy rather than the new Feisty. Could be wrong, but I think you just proved that this does happen.

Short of taking my approach with a fresh installation after backing up my Home folder, you can try this if you like.

Opening up your terminal window from Applications, Accessories. Then copy and paste in the following (remembering that in terminal, you will need to paste with your mouse after clicking inside of the terminal itself):

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then from inside the text editor, go to Search and choose Replace. You will then search for “edgy” (lower case and without quotes) and replace it with “feisty“. Replace all. Then save the file.

Now go to System, Administration, then Synaptic Package Manager. You’ll need your Ubuntu (sudo) password then once inside the application, choose “Reload” in the upper left corner. Assuming all went well, you should be ready to begin installing software again.

If it is still tossing up errors, use a USB Flash drive or external hard drive to get your “Home” folder data backed up for a fresh installation of Feisty. You may run into errors when trying this however, so I would save it to your desktop first, then take that copy of the Home folder over to the external drive.

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Regarding CNR, I am really not sure what the hold up is. I have a few suspicions, but none that I am going to get too deep into. Considering that Linspire’s CEO reads my work from time to time, I am willing to bet that he might make an appearance and perhaps could give all of us an update. ;)

Do you have an Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Simply Mepis, Linspire/Freespire, or PCLinuxOS related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt - Linux Edition!

[tags]Linux, Ubuntu[/tags]