1

Consider a "fresh" system that doesn't have user files that can be deleted easily to reclaim hard drive space. On such a system, how can one recover from running out of space during an apt installation?

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

The system I have in mind is the Ubuntu phone Aquaris E4.5, which has quite limited hard drive space. On a fresh system on the phone, it is easy to run out of space when installing a large program using apt-get. What I want to know is how to backtrack from an error like the following when there are no files that can be deleted other than default system files and the fraction of the program that was in the process of being installed by apt.

dpkg: error: failed to write status database record about 'iputils-ping' to '/var/lib/dpkg/status': No space left on device
d3pd
  • 3,661
  • There is no solution other then to make more space. – Panther Jan 04 '17 at 15:57
  • @bodhi.zazen What should be removed in this scenario? Are there some files created by Apt that can be deleted to free space? – d3pd Jan 04 '17 at 16:21
  • If this is a fresh install then no you need to make more space for ubuntu, you need a larger partition. – Panther Jan 04 '17 at 16:47
  • 1
    Clear out /var/cache/apt maybe? – Jos Jan 04 '17 at 16:55
  • @Jos Ok, yes, this is the type of approach I mean. A first step could be clearing /var/cache/apt/archives. Thanks for the suggestion. – d3pd Jan 04 '17 at 17:15
  • @bodhi.zazen I am using a device that has very limited hard drive space, so this isn't an option. – d3pd Jan 04 '17 at 17:17
  • If you are running out of hd space you are going to have problems even if you are able to finish the install. I advise you use an alternate, smaller distro. Arch or tinycore. – Panther Jan 04 '17 at 17:27
  • 1
    @bodhi.zazen If you read through my post, you'll see that I'm using an Ubuntu phone, so that is not an option, but thank you for your suggestion. I am not worried about the limited hard drive space. I am interested in how to fix Apt when an Apt install fails mid-install because of running out of hard drive space. – d3pd Jan 04 '17 at 17:34

0 Answers0