I have gone back and started with a fresh Ubuntu image.
I have run apt-get update and found that “some index files failed to download.”
If I then issue apt-get install automake I get following result:
ubuntu@ubuntu-VirtualBox:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get install automake
[sudo] password for ubuntu:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
autoconf autotools-dev m4
Suggested packages:
autoconf2.13 autoconf-archive gnu-standards autoconf-doc libtool
The following NEW packages will be installed:
autoconf automake autotools-dev m4
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,344 kB of archives.
After this operation, 4,735 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
m4 autoconf autotools-dev automake
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y
Err
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main m4 i386 1.4.16-1
404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Err
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main autoconf all 2.68-1ubuntu1
404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Err
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main autotools-dev all 20110511.1
404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Err
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main automake all 1:1.11.1-1ubuntu1
404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Failed to fetch
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/m/m4/m4_1.4.16-1_i386.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Failed to fetch
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/autoconf/autoconf_2.68-1ubuntu1_all.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Failed to fetch
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/autotools-dev/autotools-dev_20110511.1_all.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
Failed to fetch
http://it.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/automake1.11/automake_1.11.1-1ubuntu1_all.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 193.206.139.45 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
It seems that ubuntu 11.10 ran out of Support early in 2013 so is there a repository that I can add to sources.list that will find needed programs?
Attempting to install the following programs is met with “already newest version”:
build.essential
libc6-dev
libsdl1.2-dev
texinfo
Thanks Saint & saratoga for helping me here. I hope you are able to push me a little further towards the start line.