Major Upgrade Help

[essem]

Okay, so my ex installed Ubuntu on my old Toshiba satellite (got it in 2008) because Vista was a nightmare. I used it for a few years and know Ubuntu seems to have updates every day. I haven't used the laptop in about 2 years. I want to update it, but there's over 100 updates and it won't update anything because of an error. I am guessing this is because I am too far behind in updates. I am not sure where to go from here, should I just wipe my computer and install the most recent version?

[grahammechanical]

I am guessing this is because I am too far behind in updates.

More likely because the version of Ubuntu that is installed has reached End of Life and is no longer supported. When a version of Ubuntu has reached end of life the software repositories are closed and moved to an archive. We can no longer update that version of Ubuntu and it is difficult to upgrade to a newer version.

You do not say what version of Ubuntu is on that machine but the versions of Ubuntu that are presently supported are 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS and 14.10. I recommend doing a fresh install of either 12.04 LTS or 14.04 LTS but not 14.10 because non-LTS Ubuntu releases only have 9 months support. Try for Ubuntu 14.04 has that has 5 years support from April 2014.

Regards.