I am listing this under newbie, though I have a number of Linux systems.

Was given a Toshiba Satellite computer that originally had Window Vista on it. However the disk drive had been removed. Had an empty ATA SanDisk Ultra II 240 gig drive that was brand new. Have Ubuntu 10.04 on a memory stick. (Kernel Linux 2.6.32-28-generic GNOME 2.30.2) So I pop in the hard drive, plug in the memory stick and boot up the machine. It came up with the Ubuntu install option, which I proceeded with, no problem.

Well, 10.04 is a little out of date. I go to the update manager and get the message "Your Ubuntu release is not supported anymore
You will not get any further security fixes or critical updates. Please Upgrade to a later version version of Ubuntu Linux.

No problem, just go to Ubuntu.com and get a new download. The version of Firefox provided on the 10.04 release of Ubuntu is 3.6.13. At www.ubuntu.com, I get an error:
Secure Connection Failed
An error occured during a connection to www.ubuntu.com
cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s).

(Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)

This was the first compatibility problem.

I try downloading a new firefox from Mozilla, unpack it into a new folder and try to run firefox from a terminal, and get an error cannot execute binary file.

So next I go to another computer, and pull down ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso onto another usb drive. That computer is running Linux Mint, and I don't know where startup disk creater is on that machine.

Go to the 10.04 machine and use startup disk creator on that one.

Point to the .iso file. Point to a new usb drive, and run the creator. It chugs along for a while and finally tells me I can use the new disk to boot Linux.

Well, not quite. I get the followin:

Syslinux 3.53 Debian-2008-07-15 EBIOS Copyright (C) 1994-2008 Peter Avin
Missing Parameter in configuration file.
LOADING... boot:

Then it goes to the next line and hangs therer with a flashing cursor.

This is the second compatibility problem.

I tried using UnetBootin, but that had errors.

I don't care about the hard drive, I have no problem reformatting it and starting over. I'm just a little puzzled why I had no problem getting the 10.04 usb drive to boot. Looking at the Kernel version, it looks like it is a 32 bit version. When I downloaded the Unetbootin I grabbed both the 64 bit and the 32 bit versions, and it wouldn't run the 64 bit version, but would the 32 bit version, though there were errors thrown. It did run to completion, but it gets stuck in an automatic boot countdown loop. I am assuming that Mozilla automatically assumed I wanted a 64 bit version. Neither firefox nor firefox-bin will run from the command line.

Just sign me Frustrated.
Missing parameter

I'd try kubuntu or lubuntu

Hope you are (md5sum or sha) check sums of down loaded iso files. It saves headaches later on.

https://www.howtogeek.com/67241/htg-...-i-check-them/

Long story short: 10.04 is too old, you cannot securely connect to the 'net anymore.
Obtain a suitable distro (surely not the newest Ubuntu, but something for old computers), burn it on a USB with dd, satisfaction!

On your mint machine why not use the dd command to write the iso to USB?

First, yes, I did run the checksum, and the checksum said it was OK.

Next, I changed directory to the directory that contained the .iso file and executed the following: (Yes, I did set user to root)

#dd if=ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb1 bs=32M
63+1 records in
63+1 records out
2126544896 bytes (2.1 GB) copied, 457.603 s, 4.6 MB/s
#

This disk now shows up on the Mint machine as Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS amd64

Next I took the newly copied memory stick and tried booting with it in the Toshiba Satellite and got this:

ISOLINUX 6.03 20171017 EHDD Copyright (C) 1994-2014 H. Peter Avin et al
No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!
boot:

On the Mint machine, I can see the folders and files on the Ubuntu drive. But I haven't a clue what is needed to supply the correct DEFAULT or UI configuration directive.

I am beginning to think that listing this on the newbie forum was the correct decision, since I seem to be taking such small baby steps.

Mint has some safe and recovery boot options that might help on the toshiba.

Here are some cheat codes.

https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/Boot_Codes

wrong.
It needs to be /dev/sdb - without the partition number.
That is, if you're 200% sure that sdb really is the USB stick you want to burn that Ubuntu on.

1 members found this post helpful.

Success!

Credit the resolution of this problem to rokytnji for pointing out that it is important to run the SHA checksum on the .iso file.
Credit rtmistler for providing the dd command that was specifically needed to create the bootable memory stick.
Credit ondoho for pointing out that I needed to use the base drive, and not a partition on the drive as the output file.

The memory stick booted, and Ubuntu 18 is currently being installed on the Toshiba Satellite. I took the defaults, and selected the full generic Ubuntu.

I still do not know what needs to be done to fix the original Firefox so it can access Ubuntu, but I will worry about that another time, since I will be getting a current version of the browser with Ubuntu 18.

Congratulations!
And that's probably all it needs as I pointed out in post #4.