If you open with a text editor the file
/var/lib/apt/lists/*_ubuntu_dists_oneiric-backports_Release
you can see near the beginning the following lines
NotAutomatic: yes
ButAutomaticUpgrades: yes
They are responsible for the behavior described for the newer Ubuntu releases.
Modifying the line has no effect, probably because the APT system has that information already stored in some sort of cache. Also, the flag would be reset to its previous content on the next update.
This behavior is similar to that of Debian, as you can see on the page Debian Backport >> Instructions.
Also see the Ubuntu Wiki page about Backports: UbuntuBackports.
The repositories for v8.10 of ubuntu have been moved. There are repositories available at http://old-releases.ubuntu.com
The reason for this is that it is now out of support and no longer receiving updates and security patches.
I would urge you to consider a supported distribution such as 10.04 or later. If your computer is too old in terms of memory or processor then you should consider a distribution such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu.
If you want to continue using 8.10 then using your favourite text edit, edit /etc/apt/sources.list
Look for the text archive.ubuntu.com
. It will look like, for example, us.archive.ubuntu.com
Replace us.archive.ubuntu.com
with old-releases.ubuntu.com
Similarly - if you have text, for example, security.ubuntu.com
then replace this with old-releases.ubuntu.com
You can do this with sed
sudo sed -i -e 's/us.archive.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo sed -i -e 's/security.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
then update with
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Best Answer
You can run the following command line:
that on my machine show the following output