I had a dell netbook mini10v with a crippled version of ubuntu
which didnt seem to have software center / add new programs
or update
and we couldnt get it to have more than one log on identitiy.

That's what I think was happeneing, after searching the internet

The solution was to back up the data,
download ubuntu9.10 netbook remix and install that from a usb stick.

Your machine does sound like it was crippled. I am a qualified
Unix admin on Solaris and HP-UX. It accepted four logins just as it
should on day one. My box is working correctly.

However I have not been able to figure out where the paths are located
for the Package Information.