I am running Ubuntu 8.04 (currently I do not have the option to upgrade due to hardware problems). I need to get g++ onto my installation but as this is no longer supported I am unable to use the traditional apt-get approach. What are my options? Are ubuntu packages configured specifically for each version? For example could I manually download a later version of gcc and g++ that do not originally ship with 8.04 (say the 10.04 version for example) and build them from scratch? Do the compilers work in this way in the sense that they have a version PER ubuntu version or are they maintained as separate entities??

I do not know enough about ubuntu internals really and always use apt-get to obtain/update any packages I need. If it is possible to do it this way is there a way to be certain that I have everything I need with regards to utility packages needed by g++ for the installation??