[memius]

i keep getting 'no space left on device' when i try to run aptitude update.

du -h from the root folder shows i am using 15g out of a 20g disk. i have looked at my files using the 'file size view' in konqueror, and i can't see any large concentrations of files that might be responsible for using up the space in any particular folder.

are there any folders that are small and keep filling up with temporary stuff, like the register in windows? will any disk running linux eventually fill up with such crap?

[devils casper]

It looks like you haven't cleaned cache.
Execute this

sudo apt-get clean all
sudo apt-get update

In case it doesn't free up much space, post the output of df -h command here.

[memius]

thanks! i tried what you suggested (only using aptitude autoclan instead of apt-get)

here's what i did, and the resulting error messages:

mac:/home/tmh# aptitude autoclean
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
Building tag database... Done
W: Could not lock the cache file. Opening in read-only mode; any changes you make to the states of packages will NOT be preserved!
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
mac:/home/tmh#

[memius]

and, of course, when i do as suggested:

mac:/home/tmh# dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: failed to write status record about `libnotify-bin' to `/var/lib/dpkg/status': No space left on device


i have no idea what to do at this point.

[devils casper]

Try to clean cache using apt-get. Post the output of df -h command here.
Are you running any other instance of Package Manager like dpkg, apt-get or Adept?

[memius]

i tried simply apt-get clean, which seemed to work (no error messages).

df -h from the root directory:

mac:/# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3 251M 247M 0 100% /
tmpfs 252M 0 252M 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10M 168K 9.9M 2% /dev
tmpfs 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda8 28G 13G 14G 49% /home
/dev/hda7 358M 59M 281M 18% /tmp
/dev/hda4 4.6G 3.4G 1.1G 77% /usr
/dev/hda5 2.8G 325M 2.3G 13% /var

[devils casper]

You have assigned only 251MB space to root partition and thats a very very less space. root partition is 100% full.
Is there any reason for creating separate /usr, /tmp and /var partitions?

One should create /, /home and SWAP partitions only unless its a production Server.
I would suggest you to resize partitions and assign 2GB space to root partition atleast.

[memius]

i have no idea which instances of package managers i'm running. i only know of dpkg, apt-get and aptitude, all of which i have.

an aside: i had the impression apt-get was deprecated, and aptitude was the new thing?

[memius]

thanks for quick reply!

i followed the default choices in the expert setup when i installed the system, as far as i remember.

how do i resize those partitions without wiping my disk?

[memius]

do you have an idea what the root partition is full of, now that i (as far as i know) have cleaned all the packages away?