problem with upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10

Ubuntu 9.10 is not supported any more. You will need 10.04 LTS, or 10.10, of 11.04. 11.10 will be out in a few days.
Google Ubuntu upgrading Will try to find some sites that will help. Back shortly.

A lot of information here
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Natty

http://www.liberiangeek.net/2010/05/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-9-04-jaunty-to-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx-directly/

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1765921
Study these sites. A lot of information here. Will help you decide which one you want. 11.04 and 11.10 have many changes, 10.04 LTS and 10.10 are similar to 9.04.

I suggest a clean install of Natty. You will not only get a cleaner OS, it will get you to a supported release faster.

I wish to avoid a clean install if possible as I want to avoid re-installing packages that I have downloaded previously.

Is it possible to fix the preferences file so I can access the update manager? I was lead to believe that
upgrades should be performed incrementally?

If you grab the Karmic alternate ISO you can update to Karmic using that, then you can update to Lucid. It will take a hell of a lot longer and will involve a lot more downloading.

I have upgraded using the Karmic alternate ISO. That is what caused me the issues in the first place.

The issue of with update manager and the apt/preferences file occured after the upgrade was completed.

Hence my request for assistance.

As part of my investigation when I run the following command in Terminal sudo apt-get update
I get the following error:

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

What does this mean and how does it affect the Update Manager?

Do you have synaptic, aptitude or apt-get running? This will lock the packages as only ONE process can access the package database t any one time.

I believe you were correct. I got past that problem but now I get the following when I used this command sudo apt-get update:

W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 9.10 _Karmic Koala_ - Release i386 (20091027)/dists/karmic/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs

W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 9.10 _Karmic Koala_ - Release i386 (20091027)/dists/karmic/restricted/binary-i386/Packages.gz Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs

E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I have the alt 9.10 upgrade on a USB stick and I have been able read files from it once it was mounted.

Now I have the following issue:

 apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
E: Unable to parse package file /etc/apt/preferences (1)

Any idea would be appreciated.

Regards,

Fred

> To: <email address hidden>
> From: <email address hidden>
> Subject: Re: [Question #173605]: problem with upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10
> Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:11:01 +0000
>
> Your question #173605 on apt in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+question/173605
>
> Status: Open => Needs information
>
> actionparsnip requested more information:
> Do you have synaptic, aptitude or apt-get running? This will lock the
> packages as only ONE process can access the package database t any one
> time.
>
> --
> To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
> this email or enter your reply at the following page:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+question/173605
>
> You received this question notification because you asked the question.

You can run the upgrade script on the root of the cd, run it as root and it will update the OS

Thank you to all who contributed to answering my dilemma.

The solution I found that was the least painful was to move the preferences file to another directory.

I then ran the update manager which requested a partial upgrade to 10.04.

Problem solved.