I'm having a problem when I try to upgrade with "running out disk space" even though there is free space available. I found this thread - for Lucid Lynx - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1454052 which describes the problem exactly.

The EXT4 file space is out of inodes but not free space.

df -i shows that the partition is at 100% even though a regular df shows it at 83% :/

In order to get rid of the problem, I had to go to /usr/src/ and remove all the old kernels in order to free up enough inodes for the new kernel to install.

When I went to look at what was burning up all the inodes, there are a LOT of files in the linux-headers folders that just don't apply to my machine. No wonder all the inodes are used up. It creates all kinds of tiny files & folders that don't even apply to my machine.

Proposed Solutions:


  1. Not sure how to fix EXT4 but there should defnintely be an increase in the number of inodes.
  2. Create kernels as a "meta package" so that they are only storing the stuff I actually *need* and not ARM, Mac, etc.