I am a great Ubuntu fan, but what I'm experiencing is quite freaky. Here is my story: I loaded Ubuntu 10.04 some time back. I tried version 11 and hated it. So I went back to 10.04. Over time Canonical informed me that they would stop supporting it and I declined all requests for upgrades and new installations. It was working fine - if it's not broke, don't fix it (my reasoning). Okay a little more time passes by and I install version 12.10 onto my girlfriend's computer and ... wow what an amazing software. Okay so now I'm impressed and I decide to upgrade my 10.04. The worst mistake. For starters there is no longer an upgrade feature in the "software centre". So I go the route of getting a CD prepared and do the upgrade. My computer has totally crashed. No matter what I do, Ubuntu won't load up. Something appears to be wrong with corrupted "squashfs files". Now for the real freaky part. It appears a series of files on my 10.04 are corrupt and I cannot format my hard drive and start from scratch, even when I try load up from the CD/DVD. Simply put Ubuntu won't work.
Now for the freaky stuff: So I had 10.04 for quite a long while and I was able to disconect all the requests for software upgrades and disconnect any "searching for new software". In essence my software Centre went dead as far as looking for software. For one or other reason I installed NetHogs which allowed me to check who (if anyone) is using my internet connection. I saw it register my name every time I connected to the internet (whether email or internet surfing), but I was stumped to see that "root" would log onto the net and go to some site described by numbers at strange hours of the night or morning. Is it posible that someone hacked into my Ubuntu? Or did Canonical use their "root" status to log into my computer? Is it possible I got a virus on Ubuntu?
What ever the story, I wish I could simply format my hard drive and start from scratch. Can anyone help?