Update failed - run dpkg manually

[William_in_Kanata]

New install of ubuntu. Install went ok, and I then tried to update to latest releases of all packages which ran as expected until near the end. when something failed and the process crashed. Didn't catch the error messages. I then tried to restart synaptic, and received the following message:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

Running dpkg as requested produces the following messages:

Setting up initramfs-tools (0.85eubuntu39.1) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)

Setting up linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-19-generic (2.6.24-19.28)
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

gzip: stdout: No space left on device
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
dpkg: error processing linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-19-generic (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-generic:
linux-image-generic depends on linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-19-generic; however:
Package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-19-generic is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-generic (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-generic:
linux-generic depends on linux-image-generic (= 2.6.24.19.21); however:
Package linux-image-generic is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-generic (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

gzip: stdout: No space left on device
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
dpkg: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1


The problem as I see it is the gzip "no space on device" error. Question is: Which device?. /boot is on its own partition, of 37.9 GB, and System Monitor says there are 5.0 Mb free, with 3.1 Mb available. (Why are these numbers not the same?) Do I need to re-install with a larger boot partition? If so how big should I make it? If not boot, how do I figure out which device is the problem? I have plenty of disk space, but is allocated to other partitions.

TIA

[Pumalite]

Post>
df -h

[William_in_Kanata]

df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 9.3G 416M 8.4G 5% /
varrun 887M 100K 887M 1% /var/run
varlock 887M 0 887M 0% /var/lock
udev 887M 68K 887M 1% /dev
devshm 887M 12K 887M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 887M 38M 849M 5% /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1 38M 33M 3.1M 92% /boot
/dev/sda4 102G 207M 97G 1% /home
/dev/sdb3 28G 173M 27G 1% /opt
/dev/sdb4 28G 176M 27G 1% /tmp
/dev/sdb1 28G 1.8G 25G 7% /usr
/dev/sdb2 28G 639M 26G 3% /var

[William_in_Kanata]

df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 9.3G 416M 8.4G 5% /
varrun 887M 100K 887M 1% /var/run
varlock 887M 0 887M 0% /var/lock
udev 887M 68K 887M 1% /dev
devshm 887M 12K 887M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 887M 38M 849M 5% /lib/modules/2.6.24-19-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1 38M 33M 3.1M 92% /boot
/dev/sda4 102G 207M 97G 1% /home
/dev/sdb3 28G 173M 27G 1% /opt
/dev/sdb4 28G 176M 27G 1% /tmp
/dev/sdb1 28G 1.8G 25G 7% /usr
/dev/sdb2 28G 639M 26G 3% /var

[Pumalite]

/dev/sda1 38M 33M 3.1M 92% /boot
Remove some of the stuff from this folder.