New instalation, old distribution, antique machine

[Dave Burrows]

Hello, 

We've tried everything we know to do to upgrade Ubuntu (Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
- the Dapper Drake) on this HP Omnibook without success.


1. Upgrade Tool - New distribution release '8.04.1 LTS is available.

        Getting upgrade prerequisites failed
        
        The system was unable to get the prerequisites for the upgrade.
        The upgrade will abort now and restore the original system
        state.
        
        Please report this as a bug against the 'update-manager' package
        and include the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ in the
        bugreport.
        
        
2. From CD - seems CD-ROM isn't functioning; dusted w/ canned air. Same
results.

        Unable to mount the selected volume.
                >show more details
                mount: no medium found
                
                
3. from USB Flash Drive

        a. No support in BIOS for booting from USB drive.
        
        b. File Browser --> root --> wubi.exe
                
                Could not open 'wubi.exe'
                The package might be corrupted, or you are not allowed
                to open the file. Check the permissions of the file.
                
        Full permissions for owner, none for group, none for other.  I'm
        owner. Tried giving group & other full
        permissions, checkboxes wouldn't stay checked.


One option is to try to borrow an external CD-ROM, but installing it may
prove difficult.  Another may be to pursue the permissions of wubi.exe,
but I don't know where to start.  A third might be to figure out a way
for this old distribution to look for something newer than 8.04 on the
server; is that even possible?

We use this machine exclusively to record sermons at our church with
Audacity.  I'm a total Linux novice beyond this machine.

Does anyone have any ideas for a next direction?

Peace,

Dave