The Gears Inside My Head

I just ran into an issue where I had an older Ubuntu box running 8.10 which is not an LTS release and wanted to upgrade it.  Since it's no longer supported even doing simple updates wasn't working.  After searching the web a while I found a number of answers that combined allowed me to upgrade. I found I was getting these errors when doing the " do-release-upgrade"   Checking for a new ubuntu release    Failed Upgrade tool signature    Failed Upgrade tool     Done downloading extracting 'jaunty.tar.gz'    Failed to extract Extracting the upgrade failed. There may be a problem with the network or with the server. The following information is from numerous sources.  It worked for me, I cannot guarantee it will work for you.  Try not to do the upgrade over SSH as problems can occur. Note: Ubuntu has an upgrade guide that goes over upgrading older versions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades?a...

This is a very late entry into the blogosphere.  I've never had much in the way of time to devote to this sort of thing so I've never tried it.  I figure it's time to put down my thoughts and any pertinent references I need quick access to.  Perhaps it might help a few others out along the way.  We'll see how it goes. In case you're wondering about the name of the blog, I consider myself a "gearhead".  It's more of an insider term that summarizes "geek", "nerd", "techie", etc. all in one.  I've never liked the term "geek".  That's a carnival performer who eats bugs.  Similarly I've never liked "nerd"  since it has a very specific connotation associated with it. "Gearhead" has always seemed more appropriate so the title seemed appropriate.