I always failed when update using yum:

[root@pv-chem-file yum]# yum -y update
Setting up Update Process
Setting up Repos
base 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
updates-released 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files
base : ################################################## 2622/2622
updates-re: ################################################## 944/944
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Downloading header for kernel-smp to pack into transaction set.
kernel-smp-2.6.12-1.1381_ 100% |=========================| 860 kB 00:00
---> Package kernel-smp.i686 0:2.6.12-1.1381_FC3 set to be installed
--> Running transaction check

Dependencies Resolved
Transaction Listing:
Install: kernel-smp.i686 0:2.6.12-1.1381_FC3 - updates-released
Total download size: 17 M
Downloading Packages:
(1/1): kernel-smp-2.6.12- 100% |=========================| 17 MB 00:03
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Check Error: installing package kernel-smp-2.6.12-1.1381_FC3
needs 19MB on the / filesystem

I was told that the reason is I don't have enough space on / filesystem (they need 19M), but using "df" command, I found I still have 50M space on / filesystem.

[root@pv-chem-file yum]# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 505604 429100 50400 90% /
/dev/sda5 63384708 13490808 46674076 23% /home/pv-chem-file
none 517280 0 517280 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2 5036316 1329044 3451440 28% /usr
128.250.110.160:/home/webserver
7352928 5752640 1226784 83% /home/webserver

Who can tell me why?

I wonder if that even though it's only 17 megs it might more over head to actually finish the job. Can you clear up any more space on your hard drive? Wish I know exactly why.

Ok. I will try again. But do u believe that 33M over head is still not enough?

It may depend on possible fragmentation on the drive, and it could need 2x the size in contiguous space. Is this the box with the root partition space problem? That could definitely make problems as you're probably also colliding with /tmp space issues on top of it. You need to move the repository off the root partition also, or you're gonna be killing yourself any time you need to upgrade a package or apply patches. See if you can move that stuff. (Sorry I don't know just at the moment what you need to move!)

-Alan