Repository update?

[lesbaker]

So I have UNR 8.04 installed on Lenovo S10 and everything seems to be working fine, but I have a few questions. I notice some of the stuff in the repository are really out of date like OpenOffice version they have is 2.4 while 3.0.1 is out, the same for pidgn and stuff like that. Is there a way we can get synaptic to like update itself so we can get the newest versions of everything. Alright people might suggest why not install it yourself? Well to be honest I am a newb at linux and plus it would take more time trying to convert the downloaded file to LPIA. Is is possible to use the Intrepid Ibex 8.10 repositories? What about Mint repositories will that work cause I read most of their repositories should be up to date?

[snowpine]

Hi Lesbaker, Ubuntu is not a "rolling release" distro. Applications are "frozen" at their current version, except for minor security updates and bug fixes. The easiest way to get new versions of applications is to upgrade to the next release of Ubuntu every 6 months (8.04->8.10->9.04 etc).

If you want to stick with 8.04, it is possible to manually install newer applications on a case by case basis. For example, if you search the forums, you'll find lots of tutorials for installing OpenOffice 3.