Linux Mint 13 KDE. Attempted to upgrade to 4.9 from 4.8.5 via Terminal. Over an hour later of downloading I got everything except 3 that "failed to fetch" I'm still on 4.8.5, 4.9 upgrade never took. Do I have to redownload all those files again or can I just get whatever is missing?

It will depend on your package manager, and it's configuration. As you are using Mint, which is Ubuntu/Debian based you will be using apt/dpkg - which should keep all the packages you previously downloaded.

I would recommend refreshing your repository state (apt-get update) and trying again at this point. If it still fails, contact the maintainers of the repository you are using to upgrade to KDE 4.9.

Hi, so I understand, at the end of the download/install process it came up with 3 failed to fetch which means:

- all but three packages were downloaded, nothing installed

- all but three packages were downloaded and installed

-I need those three packages to complete the upgrade

-I can get missing packages by using the command apt/dpkg ?

Thanks.

I think apt will not install anything if some packages failed to fetch, I'm not sure however, it has been a while.
Did you run apt-get update, then retry? If the problem persists, then contact your distro people, there's probably something wrong with their repos in that case.

Cheers

Trying to sort now. At the moment I get an error of unvalid command for dist-upgrade error (should it be dist-update?).

No, dist-upgrade is correct.
Can copy/paste what you typed plus the error message? That's more exact than a circumscription of what happened.

Greetings