I'm attempting to do a dist-upgrade and it always fails when trying to unpack replacement ia32-libs.

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/ia32-libs_2.2_amd64.deb (--unpack):
failed in buffer_write(fd) (9, ret=-1): backend dpkg-deb during `./emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/dri/r300_dri.so': No space left on device
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)

I find this rather confusing since it is able to unpack and install other packages just fine.


I've searched Google and found references to the same problem, down to the package ia32-libs.

I manually partitioned my drive. Here is the output of df...
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 259M 233M 13M 95% /
tmpfs 502M 0 502M 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10M 116K 9.9M 2% /dev
tmpfs 502M 0 502M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda9 219G 191G 17G 92% /home
/dev/sda8 373M 11M 343M 3% /tmp
/dev/sda5 4.6G 3.3G 1.1G 76% /usr
/dev/sda6 2.8G 594M 2.1G 23% /var
/dev/sdb1 294G 278G 1.4G 100% /mnt/sdisk


The root partition is almost full, which I've read can cause these sort of problems, but it has never caused any problems in the past to the best of my knowledge. Also, the packages are stored under /var/cache/apt/archives and the var partition is only 23% full.



Any ideas?
Thanks

About 5% of ext2/3 is reserved for root, so you can run a system when the hd gets almost full. Otherwise it would just stop.
The install of ia32-libs probably then chokes on trying to unpack its files.

Ouch you are in trouble from the start! 259M!!!

Probably it's trying to unpack it in /tmp
?

Well, it did say it's choking on unpacking to the emul dir which I take it is under /. Could be wrong though.

And nx500 is right about a quite small root partition.

Hum it's says ./
Not very informative

edit:
Anyway dpkg would never create a directory /emul


Maybe try to do it like this:
export TMPDIR=/var/tmp
redo the stuff

Not really, no. That's why I wrote "I take it..."

btw, here's your missing zero: 0

Thanks
Much better

makuyl: You're right, this directory emul is under the root directory, so that's why it's having problems.

Is there an easy way to resize the root partition without losing data?

Parted can resize, but with all such actions, full disk backups should be taken before touching anything.
It might be easier to just mount another dir from / to its own partition, but your both disks look quite full.
Last time I did some repartitioning to get extra space to / I just made backups with parted, cleaned out all partitions with cfdisk, made new ones, and restored from the backups. In addition I had taken a backup of the whole disk with dd to a spare hd.
Take care if you use compression with parted, because it will need equal space to unpack to before restoring a partition. Best to take backups without compression.
Googling for resize ext3 partition gets a lot of hits, but like I said, I prefer to remake all partitions.

Since unpacking works fine with all other packages I've come across, I'd rather just not deal with it. Is there a way to tell apt-get to ignore a specific package or, better yet, specify a new installation path for ia32-libs?

You could do a symlink as in "mkdir /usr/local/emul && ln -s /usr/local/emul /emul" and see if dpkg goes through without other errors.

To keep the package from getting upgraded: echo "ia32-libs hold"|dpkg --set-selections"
You can unhold it with "install" instead of "hold" in the echo command.

If I tell dpkg to hold a package, it just comes back and says 'dpkg: operation requires read/write access to dpkg status area.' I tried doing the same thing with aptitude hold ia32-libs, but that didn't work either.

dpkg --get-selections|grep ia32-libs
ia32-libs install

However, I was able to hold ia32-libs through aptitude directly and then completely upgrade my system by issuing the command 'aptitude full-upgrade'.


Now my root directory is 100% full since aptitude tried to install the latest kernel. I could always remove version 2.6.21 so that aptitude can complete the installation of 2.6.22. However, when I attempt to remove it, I am politely warned. But as long as I replace the current kernel with the new one and edit the boot loader, I should be fine, right?


Thanks

I don't know what happens if you remove a running kernel, and I wouldn't recommend finding out. You could chroot from a livecd to replace the kernel, but all in all you should give / more space. These problems won't go away otherwise.

I made a copy of my hdd and was able to boot using the mirrored drive. The only thing I'm a little worried about is how I was logged out after dd apparently finished successfully. I'm thinking about the possibility that my system may have crashed before it completed... Everything seems to be fine but I can't know for sure.


I guess I'll just have to run dd again and see if the same thing happens.

The best way to take backup IMHO is when running a livecd. That way you know the backup is clean.