Bug#528914: Package: installation-reports (rootfs full)

[Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>]

Quoting Stephan Hilliger (stephan@snackattack1.dyndns.org):

> Hi Christian,
> I had 3 SMP Kernel directories in the partition.
> I deleteted 2 older kernel directories.
> 
> The problem was,
> I can`t install any other software-package with atp or aptitude.
> The failed software was snort all_deb.pkg.
> 
> It isn`t install in root.
> 
> This was no problem of the kernel flavours, becourse the latest running
> kernel installed is /2.6.26-2-686/kernel.


Uh?

That's becoming less and less clear.

Your original bug report pointed to the root partition being filled at
some moment and causing the package install failures.

Then, you mention that cleaning out the root partition solved the
problem.

Packages often install stuff in /.....at least files in /etc. Here you
seem to mention snort which, for instance, copies a few files in /etc.

So, well, what's currently said is "if the root partition is full,
then packages that install files in the root partition fail to
install". I would say this is expected..:-)

So, the only "bug" one could see is the suggestion of making the root
partition big enough to accomodate further changes by the local
admin. This is actually what I thought you were suggesting: that the
root partition should be at least able to accomodate with 2 kernel
flavours as that often happens in a machine's life.

That, I would agree with and this is why I finally didn't close the
bug and reassigned it to partman-auto.

However, you now mention that you actually had *three* living kernel
flavours in a 260MB partition. I would say it is then expected that
the partition fills in and makes packages intallation fail.

So, pretty much normal behaviour here and not really something we can
do much about: reserving more space for the root partition because
sometimes users might want to install 3 kernel flavours at the same
time would be kind of a waste. So, I would say it is then up to the
local admin to not accept the proposed defaults for / when doing
autopartitioning with a separated /usr, /var and /home if (s)he plans
to install many packages that could fill up /

So, I consider closing this bug again.