Installing Ubuntu Gutsy Packages via apt-get When EOL’ed

If you’re running an older version of Ubuntu that has been EOL’ed (End of Lifed) then you’ll at some point need to install a new package using apt-get. When trying to do this you’ll likely get a 404 erros saying the package isn’t found. Your choice is to either upgrade Ubuntu to a new version or modify /etc/apt/sources.list to point to an older release archive. In my case I took the path of release resistance and modified /etc/apt/sources.list. The original version had these lines:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted universe multiverse

And I simply modified them to look like:

deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted universe multiverse

After saving your sources.list file you should be able to do a sudo apt-get update and then sudo apt-get install [your-package-name] to install whatever package you need. Thanks to @austinmills for helping me with this.

One Response to “Installing Ubuntu Gutsy Packages via apt-get When EOL’ed”

1. brianko says:

   January 10, 2010 at 2:59 am

   Excellent, thanks!