[CentOS] Can't update kernel, says not enough space

John Hinton webmaster at ew3d.com
Mon Aug 28 04:26:50 UTC 2006


Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
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> On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 03:09:06PM +1200, Tony Wicks wrote:
>   
>>> On Sun, Aug 27, 2006 at 09:59:04PM -0500, techlist wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Transaction Check Error:   installing package kernel-2.6.9-42.0.2.EL 
>>>> needs 6MB on the / filesystem
>>>>
>>>> But I have much more than 6M:
>>>>         
>>> That is a common, confusing error.
>>>
>>> What it should say is "needs 6MB more than what is currently avaliable".
>>>
>>> []s
>>>       
>> This is why I've always been opposed to this "over partitioning" that 
>> people do. It made some sense when hard drives were 2 gig but now it 
>> just causes problems for no tangible gain.
>>
>>     
>
> You are quite wrong there. Are is plenty of gain on "correct partitioning".
> Having the correct number of partitions will make it possible to you
> to have partitions with different flag (/usr as read-only, /tmp as 
> nosuid/noexec, /var/log as non-journaling etc), giving you flexibility,
> speed and security.
>
> The problem is that many people (not saying that is the case here)
> don't know how to do it right, or even why they are doing it. In
> those cases, they should stick to the 4 basic partitions (/boot, /,
> /tmp and swap). But if you know what you are going, partitioning the
> disk correctly is the best thing to do.
>   
Agreed.. not to mention what happens when the single partition fills! 
It's nice to have the OS pretty much protected from no space.

Anyway, back to the root of the problem. If the machine has been running 
a while and has been updated regularly, you likely have 2, 3, 4, or more 
kernels on the system. Uninstall one or more of the older ones 'NOT' in 
use and you'll have room again. If it's multi-processor, you'll have two 
kernels for each update. Just be sure you are only removing the kernels 
and the old ones. You can fully wreck your system... be 'positive' of 
what you are doing. It can help to take a look at your bootloader to see 
what old stuff is in the list.

Best,
John Hinton



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