Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle?
On Sun 01 Jul 2018 at 13:17:47 (-0700), Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> I've been banging my head against the wall trying to compile OpenSSL
> clients on my Jessie laptop (see my recent posting titled "Can't
> link to OpenSSL on my laptop). I've decided to upgrade it to
> Stretch like my desktop machine, which compiles these programs
> successfully. However, "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" shows the
> message:
>
> E: You don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/.
>
> apt-get autoclean doesn't help; neither does apt-get clean. When I
> tried apt-get autoremove, the upgrade started, but at 99% completion
> it threw the message:
>
> Error writing to output file - write (28: No space left on device)
>
> Sure enough, / is full, with all the fun that that entails.
It's worth knowing where the problem lies. I would type
du -sh /[a-ln-z]*/ 2>/dev/null
(I dodge m because /media has loads mounted under it; null
avoids permissions clutter if you do this as a user.)
Then you can refine it depending what you find:
du -sh /var/*/ 2>/dev/null
> Is Jessie's default partitioning insufficient for Stretch, or have I
> somehow filled up / with extraneous junk? Would I be better off
> backing up /home, wiping the disk (e.g. with cfdisk) and starting
> from scratch? (Probably - I should probably split /var into a
> separate partition anyway.)
A separate /home is more useful as it allows a fresh installation
of the / partition that doesn't touch it.
> After this experience, I'm gun-shy about upgrading a system in place.
Why? If you find the cause, you can fix it. Upgrades are careful
about preserving the system's integrity to run.
> BTW is it ok to sudo apt-get, or should I su root and run it from an
> actual root prompt?
Cheers,
David.
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