I just received an Ionics Nimbus 100 (same specs as a Sheevaplug, but with a weird JTAG thing instead of builtin SD card reader).   The box, the website, everything states it comes preloaded with Ubuntu 9.04.  However /etc/issue reports that it is running Debian Lenny.  The installed applications seem to support this.
 
The issue I have is that I need Python 2.6 for the application I want to use, which Ubuntu 9.04 includes.   I use Ubuntu for servers and am quite familiar with it, so it would be my preferred OS to use anyways.  I can find lots of instructions for setting up Ubuntu on a Sheevaplug - but they all seem to require using an SD card as your data partition.   The base install of a Sheevaplug, from what I understand, can run Ubuntu 9.04 without requiring an SD card.

Does anyone here know a good way to fix this?  I'm happy to invest a great deal of time and money into this - just need a pointer for where to start looking.
 
Thanks!