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I have recently acquired a laptop that runs ubuntu 9.04. I personally have never heard of or seen this OS and am pretty confused by it, after spending all day trying to log into it, i finally go in but now i cant seem to update it to the newest version. Please help this noob update his new laptop.

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  • 9.04 is really old - no way to 'update' it. You'll have to get the latest release from ubuntu.com, and do a clean install.
    – mikewhatever
    May 30, 2014 at 22:28
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    Yes you can upgrade to 14.04 but really you don't want to. It's much easier and faster to install from start.
    – Alvar
    May 30, 2014 at 22:29

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There are two types of Ubuntu release:

  • Long Term Support (LTS herein) which are released every 2 years
  • Standard released every 6 months (when it's not an LTS release)

LTS releases can be upgraded to the next LTS or the next standard release. Standard releases can only upgrade to the next release.

9.04 was a standard release and the next LTS is 10.04. Your only upgrade path is:

  • 9.04 → 9.10
  • 9.10 → 10.04 LTS
  • 10.04 LTS → 12.04 LTS (you could stop here)
  • 12.04 LTS → 14.04 LTS (the current release)

The problem is 9.04, 9.10 and even 10.04 LTS are all so old that they're unsupported and their repositories (which you need to update with) have been shut off.

You can fight this and upgrade... But you'll need to do at least two upgrades to get to a supported release (12.04 LTS is supported until 2017). That's a fair amount of bandwidth and time.

I'd honestly be looking at downloading Ubuntu, "burning" the ISO to a USB stick and just reinstalling (after making sure 14.04 works on your system). You'll get the benefit of stock settings (rather than a hodge-podge you've been left with) and with a decent internet connection, the full process only takes about an hour. Much quicker than an upgrade

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