I am clueless!!

[dsommer]

If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated. I recently purchased a barely used Dell Mini 9 from my brother. This mini came with an 8 gig solid state hard drive with Ubuntu installed. He attempted to "run some updates". Now the system boots up but other than surfing the web, nothing can be done as the system is "full". It also has some broken packages which I have been unable to repair.

I have been reading up on installing Ubuntu but everything indicates that the software must be installed off of a CD. This mini does not have a CD drive.

At this point I am at a total loss and am trying to determine if there is any hope of getting this mini up and running.

[kjacks]

Install Ubuntu from a USB stick.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

[dsommer]

Thank you. I had been looking for something like this but was unable to locate it.

[dsommer]

OK, I have downloaded Ubuntu to my flash drive. However, I am still having trouble understanding what steps I need to take to reformat the hard drive.

I have spent time researching but nothing makes sense to me as I am locked in my paradigm of Microsoft operating systems.

Do I need to wipe the hard drive clean? If so, how do I do this?