updating from 7.1 to 8.04

Type ALT - F2 and enter this

update-manager -d

Might help.

The fact that you say "please insert disk 8.04 ubuntu before continuing" suggests that you are half way there. It is looking for the CD because it thinks it will act as a repository. You need to edit your sources list to make this line ineffective.

Open a Terminal and input the command: gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
This will open your sources list in the editor called gedit
Most probably at the top you will see a line about the 8.04 cd.
Put a # at the beginning of that line to make it ineffective.
Save gedit. Exit gedit.

If you click on the blue link above it does show that there is nothing there. If Rob Frerejean's solution doesn't work Open a Terminal and try these commands in turn:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist upgrade
sudo apt-get install -f

If it reports an error at any time, or a possible unsatisfactory outcome e.g. lots of removes, then come back here and tell us about it.

Hi :)

The official download page is here
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/getubuntu/download
and this is free. It is also worth checking
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
although these can take 12 weeks to arrive.

Ubuntu releases are usually every 6 months; at the end of April and October (hence the .04 or .10). Support for each release usually lasts 18 months. Usually it is advisable to upgrade 1 version at a time however Ubuntu also do special LTS releases aimed mostly at corporate users but also at other people that don't want to upgrade quite so often. LTS stands for LongTermSupport and from an LTS release it is easier to upgrade straight to the most recent release even if that means skipping a few releases.

LTS releases get bug-fixes and updates before the other releases so many people find it better to stick with one LTS and then just wait for the next LTS release. When a new LTS is released the previous one still has a years worth of full support giving people plenty of chance to upgrade on their own timetable. 8.04 is an LTS release and the next one is apparently due to be 10.06, this break in the usual cycle also happend with the 6.06 release which was the previous LTS release before 8.04. By upgrading to 8.04 you could jump straight to upgrading to 9.04 or you could stick with 8.04 for another month or so and then perhaps jump straight to 9.10, or you could join the same party as a lot of the rest of us.

It is often a good idea to try downloading the new release and try it out as a LiveCd session
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
before just jumping straight into an upgrade.

There are sometimes issues with hardware and so on - for example my old ati graphics card stopped being supported in 9.04 as ati shifted their driver for the old card into their "legacy driver" which breaks my monitor's signal. In 8.10 i had great graphics but in 9.04 is been fairly lousy. Normally this sort of thing is not a problem but until the latest 4000 series the ati cards had been going downhill rather badly with the 1000 series being far superior to the newer 2000 and 3000 series which is why i had bought such an ancient graphics card in the first place. The new 4000 series is well worth the money, a real bargain, but slightly outside my grasp at the moment, lol. Such is life. So testing a LiveCd of 9.04 before upgrading might well have alerted me to the problem and then i might have taken steps to avoid deleting my old ati driver, perhaps even have backed it up somewhere safe so that i could try using it in 9.04.

Since 7.10 is no longer supported it is important to upgrade to 8.04 but upgrading further is entirely up to you. I have to say that 9.04 is excellent and i do much prefer it even though it stopped me from being able to play top-end games and Glest is also a bitt too dark for me. The rest of 9.04 more than makes up for that :)

I hope something here helps!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal#Starting%20a%20Terminal

most recent errors as follows: Err: http://security.ubuntu.com gutsy-security/main Sources 404 not found, when entering the sudo apt-get update or upgrade command in terminal. the universe packages at IP: p1.189.88.140.80 appears to be another dead end. I have retrieved a copy of 8.04 gutsy and when i insert the disk it wants to open the synaptic manager, then gives messages about not wanting to apply the updates as they may be malicious sources. Any fixes for that? I tried the apt-get upgrade command, it generated a long list of packages, that failed to fetch from http://security ubuntu/pool/univers/main/ with various extensions listed. all are not found. Thank you everyone who has assisted so far, and my apologies for not responding sooner, just been a freaky few days personally, and i am ready now to try again.
Thanks

The problem has been resolved. The 8.04 ubuntu disk was accessable, but only to over-write 7.10 to the 8.04 distro of hardy heron. Fortunately, i keep my feathers numbered for just such occasions and was able to back-up most of what i had.
Sometimes the solutin to a problem is to roll up your sleeves and git after it. My thanks to the launchpad forum and all of your assistance!