ran apt-get upgrade on my lenny machine. It exits while trying to configure initramfs-tools. now I cannot use apt-get or dpkg.

dellhead:/home/garrett# apt-get upgrade
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
dellhead:/home/garrett# dpkg --configure -a
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.92g) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26

gzip: stdout: No space left on device
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26
dpkg: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dellhead:/home/garrett# dpkg --configure --force-confold initramfs-tools
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.92g) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26

gzip: stdout: No space left on device
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26
dpkg: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dellhead:/home/garrett#


computer still boots and everything is working as before, but I would like to install some packages today and this is really holdin me back. any suggestions?

thanks

What does $ df -h tell you?

garrett@dellhead:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 23G 4.9G 17G 23% /
tmpfs 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10M 116K 9.9M 2% /dev
tmpfs 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 46M 37M 6.8M 85% /boot
/dev/sdb2 262G 1.9G 247G 1% /home
/dev/sda3 201G 112G 90G 56% /mnt/winstorage
garrett@dellhead:~$


do you think its my boot partition. i hope not, its on my windows drive maybe I have partition magic around, but I thought 50 megs was plenty anything that would be ok to clear out of there.

garrett@dellhead:/boot$ ls
config-2.6.24-1-amd64 initrd.img-2.6.26
config-2.6.24-1-amd64.old lost+found
config-2.6.26 System.map-2.6.24-1-amd64
grub System.map-2.6.26
initrd.img-2.6.24-1-amd64 vmlinuz-2.6.24-1-amd64
initrd.img-2.6.24-1-amd64.bak vmlinuz-2.6.26
garrett@dellhead:/boot$

thx

Your /boot partition does seem to be rather heavily populated. My /boot has 21 meg (and that's in openSUSE, which can be bloated). My Debian installation has less than that in /boot.

I suggest that you look closely at what is in /boot to see if there is anything you don't need, then delete unnecessary files.

Hint: rename prospective delete files, one at a time, then reboot after each rename. If renaming a file will causes boot problems, just give it the original name. If renaming a file doesn't cause boot problems, it should be same to delete that file. If in doubt, move the file to your home folder, along with a note detailing where the file comes from, it's original name, and why you moved it.

If it were my machine, I'd delete the amd64.old and amd64.bak files, then try the upgrade again.

Another option is to use dd from a LiveCD to: copy /boot to /, remove the /boot partition, and update grub/lilo (and the MBR) to point properly. Oh, I see that / is on /dev/sdb1, so it would take a little more effort, but not much.

now that i think of it I have a boot logo app splashy that might have created a large image to boot up with. I cp and rm the old 2.6.24 and and gonna reboot and try again. wish me luck!

awesome clearing out the /boot fixed the upgrade situation. now I guess I will have to go partition magic on my windows drive sda to enlarge my /boot which is /sda1 any other suggestions.... i would like to build some custom kernels and i forsee this being a problem.