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First, not a computer literate person, not even a novice- so please use small words.

I recently made the switch to ubuntu, it came preloaded on my new laptop that I order from a big tech dot com site. The version on it is 12.04 (i think) and 64bit.

This system has a lot that I like but it is quirky for me to say the least. Apparently I have held broken packages and have no way of knowing how to find them. I discovered this when trying to download (from software center) VLC so that I could watch some movies I had on an external hard-drive. Unmet dependencies error and held broken package errors abound while trying to fix the problem. Ive scoured this site and other and followed almost all the suggestions to a T but still I am unable to fix anything.

My computer is partitioned (but I don't even know how to get to the otherside so to speak).

I would like to know; can I put the newer 13.04 OS on one side of the partition and then delete the older version on the other side?

or, can I install 13.04 over the existing 12.04?

What would I need to do this?

An obstacle that I have is this, I am currently serving in Afghanistan so going someplace to buy something or running down to a computer store for service support is out of the question.

I very much appreciate your help, cause right now this computer is nothing more than a word processor, which would be fine if all i wanted was a word processor.

Thanks in advance.

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  • Look at this and this. You need to create or buy a disk or USB stick with the Ubuntu 13.04 installation source on it (Download from here ). You can then install from it, and when prompted with installation type, select to install alongside the current Ubuntu system. BE VERY CAREFUL, otherwise you can wipe all your data at the press of a button, so backup everything first.
    – Wilf
    Oct 28, 2013 at 21:10
  • N.B. Looking at your other posts, re installing would be the best option as not much seems to work installing wise. BUT, a quick alternative would be to get a USB drive larger than 4GB, and installing a Live operating system to it. You could then keep you videos on that and also watch them from it. After you have created it, you then just need to select to boot from it when the computer starts up (by pressing F2 or F12 or something), and voila, a completely separate operating system on your computer!
    – Wilf
    Oct 28, 2013 at 21:20

1 Answer 1

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If I remember correctly, a 13.04 install CD could upgrade/fix a broken Ubuntu install. Download the installation CD, burn the iso into a CD (your Ubuntu version should have Brasero installed, it works fine with CDs) and boot from that CD. Once you have done that, follow the instructions that will appear on the CD, they're pretty self-explanatory.

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  • Pauix @pauix, look at this to understand the problem more.
    – Wilf
    Oct 28, 2013 at 21:23

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