[Ubuntu-US-CA] Older Ubuntu Releases

[Grant Bowman]

I saw this on the North Bay LUG mail list and thought people on this
list might like to know it if they don't already.

Grant Bowman
Ubuntu California


Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 09:56:21 -0700
From: Andrew <argonaut at gmx.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] Ubuntu upgrade question
To: talk at nblug.org
Message-ID: <20090605095621.01acbecf at gmx.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Emanuel R wrote on Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:03:44 -0700:

> I apparently missed the deadline for the 7.10 repository
> support and now I am not able to download the latest software
> updates for 7.10.

When support ends for an Ubuntu release, that release is removed
from the regular Ubuntu repositories (as you have discovered),
but it doesn't disappear entirely. Instead, it gets put out to
pasture in Ubuntu's "old-releases" repository. It no longer gets
new security updates or bug fixes, but you can still access all
of the release's packages as they were on the last day of
support.

To do this, you'll need to edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file
(make a backup first). In it, you'll see lines like this:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-updates main restricted
universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-security main restricted
universe multiverse

Change those to read:

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

(You can also make these changes within a GUI package manager
such as Synaptic, if you prefer.)

Then update as usual and you will be as up-to-date with Gutsy as
you can be. After that, you can follow Kyle's recommendation and
upgrade to Hardy, then Intrepid, and finally Jaunty.

Good luck, and please let us know how it went.

By the way, for the Debian users on this list, Debian does the
same thing -- only their "pasture" is archive.debian.org, so the
lines in sources.list look like:

deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive/debian/ $RELEASE main
contrib non-free

A.