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Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle?

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On Sun, Jul 01, 2018 at 01:17:47PM -0700, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> I've been banging my head against the wall trying to compile OpenSSL clients
> on my Jessie laptop (see my recent posting titled "Can't link to OpenSSL on
> my laptop).  I've decided to upgrade it to Stretch like my desktop machine,
> which compiles these programs successfully.  However, "sudo apt-get
> dist-upgrade" shows the message:
> 
> E: You don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/.
> 
> apt-get autoclean doesn't help; neither does apt-get clean.  When I tried
> apt-get autoremove, the upgrade started, but at 99% completion it threw the
> message:
> 
> Error writing to output file - write (28: No space left on device)
> 
> Sure enough, / is full, with all the fun that that entails.
> 
> Is Jessie's default partitioning insufficient for Stretch, or have I somehow
> filled up / with extraneous junk?  Would I be better off backing up /home,
> wiping the disk (e.g. with cfdisk) and starting from scratch?  (Probably - I
> should probably split /var into a separate partition anyway.)

This is just a classic disk space problem, we can work it out.

Let's look at your options.

1. Grab a USB stick, mkfs.ext4 upon it, and mount it as
   /mnt/tmp.  Copy /var/cache/apt/archives/ to it. Double
   check. rm /var/cache/apt/archives/*. Mount the USB stick 
   as /var/cache/apt/archives. Proceed with the upgrade.
   When done, unmount the USB stick and reboot.

   Pros: this should work and not cause you to do much work.
         Cheap.
   Cons: you might run into disk space problems again.


2. Buy a nice SSD and a USB-SATA cable. Install stretch on it,
   keeping to two partitions: / and /home. Copy over /home from
   your internal disk. When it's all done, swap the internal
   disk for the SSD.

   Pros: clean system
         nice fast SSD
         partitions the size you want them to be
   Cons: expensive, relatively slow to do.

3. Backup /home, wipe this disk and reinstall, then restore
   /home.

    Pros: clean system
          cheap
    Cons: takes a long time, during which your system is
          completely out of commission. If something goes 
          wrong, you may need to buy a new disk anyway.

> After this experience, I'm gun-shy about upgrading a system in place.

It's just a filesystem-full problem. They're as common as people
not making good backups.

> BTW is it ok to sudo apt-get, or should I su root and run it from an actual
> root prompt?

No difference for this. Differences only come when environment
variables are important.

-dsr-

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Thread

Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> - 2018-07-01 22:20 +0200
  Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2018-07-01 23:50 +0200
    Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Carl Fink <carlf@panix.com> - 2018-07-02 00:20 +0200
  Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2018-07-02 00:00 +0200
  Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-07-02 00:50 +0200
    Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2018-07-02 01:10 +0200
      Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-07-02 03:00 +0200
    Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2018-07-02 11:20 +0200
      Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-07-02 12:10 +0200
        Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2018-07-02 13:00 +0200
      Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2018-07-02 20:40 +0200
  Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2018-07-02 04:50 +0200
  Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-07-02 10:00 +0200
    Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> - 2018-07-03 10:00 +0200
  Re: Is apt-get dist-upgrade worth the hassle? songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2018-07-02 19:20 +0200

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