Ubuntu upgrade problems

The basic reason for running gnu/linux in a virual machine rather than on the hardware directly is that gnu/linux is messier than people pretend it is. Upgrading a distribution has failed more times than it has suceeded for me. With virtualization you can revert, or make a brand new machine and copy over the files instead.

But I still have a workstation which runs Ubuntu Hardy, and I want to update it.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

file list for package linux-restricted-modules-common contains empty filename

sudo apt-get remove linux-restricted-modules-common

file list for package linux-restricted-modules-common contains empty filename
dpg: ../..src/packages.c:252 process_queue: Assertion !queuelen failed.

I see no alternative but to reinstall gnu/linux and hope it doesn't wipe my files. I don't enjoy messing with things like this, and want something up fast. I am dead tired of Ubuntu, but I see no good problemfree alternative. I recalled I had problems with Debian too, but I haven't really ran the stable version. So that is my first alternative now.