Not enough space in /var/cache/apt/archives/

Question

I had yesterday problem to install a package called ckan, and then I had some buggs. In fact, it was solved because odf the following : The doc http://docs.ckan.org/en/ckan-1.7.1/install-from-package.html indicated to run the command : echo "deb http://apt.ckan.org/ckan-1.MAJOR_VERSION lucid universe" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ckan.list

But the doc doesn't precise that it is dedicated to Ubuntu 10.4,. So for Ubuntu 12.4, the right doc is http://docs.ckan.org/en/ckan-1.7.1/install-from-source.html

So now, I have another issue : when I run the command to install the package solr-jetty, I am told 'You don't have enough free spacve in /var/cache/apt/archives/'

Here's the result of the df -H command :

Knowing I have installed Ubuntu with VirtualBox on my Mac, how can I fix that problem ?

Best

Answer 1

sudo apt-get autoclean

This will delete all packages not currently installed. If that doesn't free up enough space, then use sudo apt-get clean. This clears out all .debs downloaded and/or installed.

But it looks like your harddisc is out of space. Seriously out of space. 61Mb is not enough for a good working systen. I found 2 alternatives that can circumvent space related problems though both might be hard to pull of when using a virtual machine. A more permanent sollution would be to increase the size of your virtual machine (and I would also advice to use the method that allows the machine to dynamically to increase in size; VirtualBox has such a setting).

---

Alternative if you have a partition or external storage.

With this method you re-route the location where .debs are stored:

sudo mv -i /var/cache/apt /media/{dir_of_mounted_disc}
sudo ln -s /media/{dir_of_mounted_disc}/apt /var/cache/apt

Run the upgrade and install. After you are done you can switch back to normal with:

sudo apt-get clean
sudo unlink /var/cache/apt
sudo mv /media/{dir_of_mounted_disc}/apt /var/cache

Ofcourse {dir_of_mounted_disc} needs to be change to the name of your mounted disc.

Another alternative

This way you create a RAM disc:

sudo mkdir /media/{directory}
sudo mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /media/{directory}
sudo ln -s /media/{directory}/apt /var/cache/apt

Clean up as with the 1st alternative.

Warning this requires a large amount of RAM so may not be useable when using a virtual system.

Answer 2

Whenever you install a program, the packages (.deb files) get stored in /var/cache/apt/archives, which obviously take up space (a lot of space if there are many packages installed).

To get rid of them, use:

sudo apt-get install clean

Incase you're wondering what is the difference between clean and autoclean, here is what the man page says:

clean: clean clears out the local repository of retrieved package files. It removes everything but the lock file from /var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/. APT is used as a dselect(1) method, clean is run Those who do not use dselect will likely want to run apt-get clean time to time to free up disk space.

autoclean: Like clean, autoclean clears out the local repository of package files. The difference is that it only removes package files can no longer be downloaded, and are largely useless. This a cache to be maintained over a long period without it out of control. The configuration option Clean-Installed will prevent installed packages from erased if it is set to off.

Answer 3

These commands will remove extra packages that are no longer required .

Open terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T) and type

sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove 

Answer 4

The issue re: 'You don't have enough free spacve in /var/cache/apt/archives/' may be related to this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/1054903 Particularly if /var/cache/apt is on a tmpfs which gets erased every boot. Is it possible that you've sym-linked /var/cache/ to /tmp/cache/ or something similar in order to save space?

If this is the case the instructions to solve/work-arround it are on the bug report above.