I can't install updates or software

assuming download server may be having problem please choose different server for downloading the packages by synaptic>settings>Repositories>in the first tab ie Ubuntu Software...Select other by clicking drop down windows against download from drop down window... and choose server after it has selected the best server save and close it will reload
Alternately you can use main server and then see whether you are able to download.

just tried this and no luck I selected the best server and then closed it and clicked reload and it started doing its loading and stuff and then i got a error saying it couldn't fetch stuff just like it says when I click details on the error I get when I try to install software or updates

What's the exact error message? It should tell you what server it's having problems with.

Hi :)

Please go up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager

Inside Synaptic click on the top menu

Settings - Repositories

The first tab should be "Ubuntu Software". Please let us know if there is a Cd selected in the white box at the bottom there & which codename the cd is. Is it "Karmic Koala"? Do you have an Ubuntu Cd? If so which release version, is it Kosmic Koala" the 9.10 release?

The 2nd tab should be "Other Software" or "Third Party Software". PLease let us know the codenames of the repositories it looks for. Are there any lines saying "Feisty Fawn" or "Intrepid Ibex"? If there are any lines like that then UNtick them. Hopefully you have about half the lines saying "Kosmic Koala" ticked in there. The ones with "source code" near the end of the line do not need to be ticked except in special circumstances mostly for developers i think.

Please let us know if you have other lines such as "Wine" and "Medibuntu" in there. Hopefully you have both but it would be nice to know if they are the right versions later.

Also please let us know whether this was a fresh install of 9.10 Kosmic Koala or an upgrade from a previous release. If it was an upgrade then please let us know which one.

Hopefully his should be fairly easy to fix, the main problem is usually in trying to find out which line to untick.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

There is a "karmic koala" cd in the first tab but its not checked i think its because im running the netbook remix and netbooks don't have cd drives so its probably left unchecked. In the next tab it says http://archive.canonical.com/ ubuntu karmic partner then it has another one with (Source Code) at the end then another the same as the first and the first and last are ticked. I don't have whine or medibuntu. I would assume that this is a fresh install because I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix and haven't changed anything

Hi :)

Yes, i would leave the cd UNticked anyway, unless i deliberately needed to get software off the cd but then i would untick it again afterwards. Otherwise it gets to be a pain. So unticked is best and guess what? It's the default setting.

Ok, you do have a fresh install but it seems to be a little weird and i can't see where. Everything you describe sounds normal!

Hopefully someone else might pop in with a better idea!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

Ok, New Plan.

Please get to a command-line (sorry about this), preferably by opening a terminal console
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal#Starting%20a%20Terminal

Onto the command-line copy&paste with the mouse or type in

cd /etc/apt
ls
sudo cp sources.list sources.list.020210
ls

where "ls" is a lower-case "LS". It gives a nicely colour-coded LiSt of what is in the folder. Note that the old "dir" command also works but is not as pretty.

The sudo command will ask for your normal user password, not you Superuser one but it gives the command SuperUser privileges. "Sources.list" is a system file and it's in a system folder so it's protected against accidents.

The "cp" command creates a CoPy of "sources.list" and gives the backup a date-stamp so you know when you made it, in this case the file-name "sources.list.020210" seems good to me but the main thing is that you recognise it as the backup you made today.

Ok, now for actually doing something! Please can you copy&paste the entire contents of sources.list into here? I would do this by typing

gedit sources.list

and then CtrlA (select all text in the document) CtrlC and then paste into here perhaps with CtrlV. Then just close gedit without saving.

Note that because we didn't put sudo in front of gedit you shouldn't be able to save any changes anyway. We are still searching for the error here before considering how to change it and want to stay protected against accidents.

GEdit is a nice little text-editor but there are many others you could choose. By default GEdit is usually installed as standard in Ubuntu. Kubuntu uses Kate but i prefer Gedit anyway.

Also note the somewhat weirdly the command-line does not allow you to use CtrlV to paste! Mouse paste is always good tho :)

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)