How to install software or upgrade from old unsupported release?

Question

Recently I have installed an older version of Ubuntu on my old machine. When ever I am trying to install any software it is giving error

sudo -i apt-get install vlc

The error being flagged is under below.

Reading package lists... Done               
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done    
E: Couldn't find package vlc

Answer 1

The repositories for older releases that are not supported (like 9.04, 9.10, and 10.10) get moved to an archive server. There are repositories available at http://old-releases.ubuntu.com

The reason for this is that it is now out of support and no longer receiving updates and security patches.

I would urge you to consider a supported distribution. If your computer is too old in terms of memory or processor then you should consider a distribution such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu.

If you want to continue using an outdated release then edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change archive.ubuntu.com to old-releases.ubuntu.com

You can do this with sed

sudo sed -i -e 's/archive.ubuntu.com\|security.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

then update with

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

source

See also:

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades/

Answer 2

What are 404 errors

The 404 or Not Found error message is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested.

The web site hosting server will typically generate "404 - Page Not Found" web page, when users attempts to follow a broken or dead link.

Why are we facing 404 errors

Ubuntu follows the approach of two different release cycles:

Normal Ubuntu releases are supported for 9 months. LTS releases are supported for 5 years.

Past releases may have different support schedules (for example, normal releases (before 13.04) used to be supported for 18 months, while LTS releases (before 12.04) used to be supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server).

EOL: Once the support period for a particular release is over; they are called End Of Life (EOL) and all the updates and package repositories for that Release are transferred to a different server which results in 404 errors while running sudo apt-get update. You can confirm if your release has become EOL by going to this page. If your Ubuntu release is mentioned under "End Of Life (EOL)" Table, then the release is no longer supported and you should try to upgrade to a newer supported release. However, if you wish to continue using this unsupported release, you would have to make necessary modifications in /etc/apt/sources.list to point to the old-releases server of Ubuntu.

Steps to make necessary modifications

1. Open your Terminal:

   • Press Ctrl + Alt + T; OR
   • If you have Gnome: Applications → Accessories → Terminal; OR
   • If you have Unity: press Super (the key between Left Ctrl and Left Alt) and query for Terminal.

2. Run the following command:

   gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
   

   input your user password and press Enter.

3. Find the first line which doesn't start with #. Suppose you are running Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10): it should be like the following line:

   deb <siteurl> karmic main restricted
   

   where, <siteurl> is your preferred server - http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu in your case (for example).

4. Press Ctrl + H to replace your <siteurl> with http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu.

   • Search for: http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu ie; <siteurl>
   • Replace with: http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu and
   • Press Replace All

5. Once again:

   • Search for: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu (this exact url for all the Ubuntu Releases — whatever be the present server that you are using)
   • Replace with: http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
   • Press Replace All

6. Save your file and exit Gedit.

7. Run the following command:

   sudo apt-get update
   

There you go. No 404 Errors this time. You can now install all the available packages for your Ubuntu Release. You can also run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade to install any Security/Bug-fix updates which have not yet been installed but you won't get any further Security/Bug-fix updates from Ubuntu.

Answer 3

To get apt-get working again, change your software sources to the old release repositories.

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

delete whatever is in there, and paste the following:

# Required
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-security main restricted universe multiverse

# Optional
#deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-backports main restricted universe multiverse

That's all.

Answer 4

It appears the Karmic repositories are no longer available.

Since they are for a previous version of Ubuntu, you might consider removing them from your sources list. Take a look at this help page for step-by-step.

Answer 5

You can find the repositories under the "old-releases" server http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/

And about how to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades