Cannot download all repository indexes

Hi :)

Are you using Ubuntu 8.10 or earlier? The only currently supported releases of Ubuntu are
8.04 (LTS) = 1 year's support left
9.04 = 6 months left
9.10 = 1 year left
10.04 = 3 years support left

If you have 8.10 then upgrading to 9.04 would solve this problem but might create others. Before upgrading it is always worth trying a LiveCd session of the newer release before attempting an upgrade. I would also recommend running the new release as an additional part of a dual/multi-boot for a few days just to check. Lots of people think i am paranoid tho :) If you are considering an upgrade then rather then upgrading one step at a time i would recommend getting your /home folder onto it's own partition so that your data is safer for trying out fresh installs. There area lot of tricks for getting your new install to operate the same as the previous one but the first step is usually to move the /home
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving
Then you can collect some data from the old install and prepare for the new one

Please let us know!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi. Thanks for the reply =]

I'm using 10.4, just installed it yesterday and previously had Windows Vista. I'm a first-time user of open-source and relaly have no idea what I'm doing...

Hi :)

I usually prefer it if people keep their existing Windows and just try Ubuntu as a dual-boot, many of us kept a dual-boot to help us learn the new system more slowly and at our own pace.

However! It's great to hear you have been brave enough to make the jump completely. In the end it will probably mean you will learn a lot faster :) This guide might be useful for reference
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromWindows

Presumably on your current system you can access the internet through Firefox and surf the web? Again please let us know :)
Regards from
Tom :)

Vista corrupted my hard drive so I wanted rid of it...

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

And yes, Firefox is working. Just nothing else.

Hi :)

Yes, with Vista people often talked about "upgrading to Xp" but surprisingly few were brave enough to try something new. I think people like to stick with "what they know" even when all they know is pain & frustration. You have made a good move but of course all the difficult part is at the start!

Ok, so we have removed the 2 most usual and easiest causes of this problem. Now we need to try a little digging to find the cause. Please open a command-line

Applications - Accessories - Terminal

if that's tricky here's the guide
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal#Starting%20a%20Terminal

Then copy&paste these 2 commands with mouse right-clicks rather than keyboard-shortcuts (or just type them in!)

free -m

sudo fdisk -l

where "-l" is a lower-case "-L" and sudo asks for your normal user password but gives you no stars as you type. Then copy&paste the results back into here.

Errr, when you say "nothing else works" do you mean you can't open programs from the "Applications" menu on the top taskbar?
As always please let us know!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

             total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3015 2248 766 0 79 1748
-/+ buffers/cache: 421 2594
Swap: 6234 0 6234

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000857ae

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 18663 149903360 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 18663 19458 6384641 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 18663 19458 6384640 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Note: sector size is 2048 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdb: 4060 MB, 4060086272 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 123 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 2048 = 32901120 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048 bytes / 2048 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 2048 bytes / 2048 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x20202020

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 3 96264 0 Empty
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb2 4 123 3855600 b W95 FAT32
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.

I can open the programs but can't install the plug-ins required to use them.

Hi :)

This is the 2nd question about this today but it all appears to be up & running
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/110712
I had an update for Synaptic & the Update Manager but both went quite smoothly and i was even able to install & remove something after the update. Sometimes these things do happen and fix themselves after a couple of days, of course sometimes it's a bit more urgent to find the cause! Is it just today you have been having troubles?

Regards from
Tom :)

Hi :)

The "free -m" showed us that you have 3Gb of ram and 6Gb of swap which is all absolutely perfect. Also the "fdisk" command showed us that you have plenty of space given to Ubuntu so again it should be a perfectly excellent system.

There's a slight mystery about the 4Gb drive but my guess is that it's a usb-stick or something. Anyway that looks fairly fine and irrelevant anyway. Was it plugged in during the install? Does unplugging or ejecting it make any difference or is it a crucial bit of kit?

When you installed Ubuntu did you use a Cd? If so please could you put the Cd in the cd/dvd-drive and try booting the machine up from the cd? It should give you a menu with "Try Ubuntu without changes to this machine". If so then please try the option otherwise reboot and remove the Cd.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Also could you try to "md5sum" check the Cd for errors?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

I have got to go out right now but should be back in a few hours. One of the great things about these threads is that someone else might join in and help or even if you walk away you will hopefully get answers from people later anyway
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

I have been thinking about this and it slightly worries me that it says the sector size is 2048 not 512. Also when you said about Vista having destroyed your hard-drive i was wondering how much you have used the hard-drive since then, especially since the swap is at the end of the drive. Have you valuable data that is worth the effort of trying data recovery techniques with to try to retreive?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

I know it is very advanced stuff and trying to find where Vista puts stuff is a nightmare at the best of times but i wondered if it might be worth a go?

I think the easiest answer at this stage is to 'simply' try to reinstall Ubuntu and delete everything off the drive to reformat it, hopefully with a sector size of 512 (the default). What type of hard-drive is it? Is it a normal IDE or Sata drive or is it something fancy like Pata or a SolidStateDrive. Also is the machine a laptop or a normal desktop?

Please let us know how it's all going!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

> connected through a proxy

I'd say disable it.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/synaptic/+bug/13661
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto#Setting%20up%20apt-get%20to%20use%20a%20http-proxy

Hi :)

grrr, i missed the bit about being connected through a proxy. Still at least we dis-counted it from being some other things first! Nicely done Same :)

Apols and regards from
Tom :)

Thanks for your answers.

I don't know what I did in the end but it's working now.

Hi :)

Welcome to linux-land, especially the Ubuntu corner of it! :))

Yup, sometimes problems are just glitches that fix themselves fairly quickly but it is still better to be quick about reporting any problems in the hope of nudging the right people to fix it before too many other people suffer from the same problem.

Since it is working now then it's a good time to work through the Medibuntu page to get your multimedia sorted
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)