Distribution upgrade to 10.04, not enough disk space

[varungulshan]

Hi,

I am trying to upgrade my ubuntu distribution from 9.10 to 10.04 using update-manager. I have only 2G free in my / partition, and update-manager complains saying it needs 4G free in the / partition to upgrade.

I presume the space is needed to store downloaded packages. Is there any way I can change the download directory to some other partition (i have plenty of space in other partitions)?

Thanks,
Varun

[lemming465]

Yes, you can copy the contents of /var/cache/apt somewhere else, then remove that directory tree and replace it with a symbolic link. E.g.
cd /var/cache
cp -a apt /some/where/big
rm -rf apt
ln -s /some/where/big/apt .

[varungulshan]

That's a great suggestion! Thanks. Though I managed to delete a few packages and upgrade my ubuntu, your suggestion would have worked well also.

best,
Varun

[kyklops]

Yes, you can copy the contents of /var/cache/apt somewhere else, then remove that directory tree and replace it with a symbolic link. E.g.
cd /var/cache
cp -a apt /some/where/big
rm -rf apt
ln -s /some/where/big/apt .

It worked for me. Thank you.