Old Ubuntu Desktop Failing to Update (Failed to fetch) [duplicate]

Question

My colleagues and I are attempting to run some updates on a computer with Ubuntu 12.10, which has been unused for some time. However, when we try running sudo apt-get update the terminal returns several error messages, of which here is a sample:

W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal-backports/main/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.13 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal-backports/restricted/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.13 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal-backports/universe/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.13 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal-backports/multiverse/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.13 80]

The full log is here: http://pastebin.com/s9kD0NX6

I've heard some have had the same problem, apparently Ubuntu cannot handle large amounts of updates? At the moment, we have about 500 to install :(

How would we go about fixing this problem? Thanks for the assistance.

Answer 1

Quantal has passed end-of-life and is no longer distributed on the main Ubuntu mirrors. (If you try loading those URLs in your web browser, you'll find they really are 404 - nothing to do with Ubuntu being able to handle "large amounts of updates".)

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list to replace us.archive.ubuntu.com with old-releases.ubuntu.com, which is a site that still hosts this old software. For repositories that contain software that is not part of core Ubuntu (security.ubuntu.com, ppa.launchpad.net, dl.google.com, etc), you may want to simply comment them out from /etc/apt/sources.list or the corresponding files in sources.list.d, and then re-enable them once you have upgraded to a currently supported version.

Since such old versions are not supported and likely have security bugs that are not being patched, you will probably want to upgrade to a current version ASAP. Note that you will have to do several upgrades in succession: to 13.04, then 13.10, 14.04. You can stay there if you want as 14.04 is a long-term-support release which is still supported. Otherwise you can proceed with 14.10, 15.04, 15.10.

You might consider whether it is easier to simply start over and reinstall with a current version.