@buzz The main reason I wasn't using the official image is so that I can use the box for multiple purposes--I can launch mate desktop with startx or launch retropie after I've logged in. I'm building a palmtop/portable emulator. If it's pretty easy to set up the official image to do so, maybe I will just use the image--sure beats installing and compiling all the packages.

@BuZz

Thank you for your quick reply BuZz!
Man I feel so stupid at the end after the 404 error messages it says run apt-get update or --fix-mis
Duh! I was stupid enough to type apt-get update without the sudo command and that didn't work of course.

Now it is downloading the updates and all seems to go well. Thanks again for the quick help.
I really need to get this whole Linux command stuff into my head asap.