From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 19 15:06:54 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE2881065672 for ; Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:06:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bonomi@mail.r-bonomi.com) Received: from mail.r-bonomi.com (mx-out.r-bonomi.com [204.87.227.120]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C9318FC08 for ; Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:06:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: (from bonomi@localhost) by mail.r-bonomi.com (8.14.4/rdb1) id pAJF80H9065457; Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:08:00 -0600 (CST) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:08:00 -0600 (CST) From: Robert Bonomi Message-Id: <201111191508.pAJF80H9065457@mail.r-bonomi.com> To: web@umich.edu In-Reply-To: <20111119043010.GL8967@itcom245.staff.itd.umich.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: where to ask about problems with bsdinstall in 9.0RC2? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:06:54 -0000 William Bulley wrote: > > According to Fbsd8 on Fri, 11/18/11 at 21:02: > > > > I think you have under sized /usr and the uncompress ran out of space > > during the install. Start over again, wipe the disk clean (ie: delete > > all slices)and re-allocate your slices with larger space allocations. > > Thanks. IIRC, the error message was "out of inodes". This means something was trying to put *lots* (where 'lots' is relative number, depending on the size of the filesystem :) of little files on the filesystem. You were _not_ out of 'free space' on the filesystem, just out of slots for file 'metadata'. Newfs, if not told specifically how many inodes to allocate, makes a 'guess' based on the size of the slice -- thus increasing the size of a partition will have an automatic 'side effect' of increasing the total number of inodes. However, by explicitly stating the number of inodes, or the inodes per unit of storage, when running newfs, one can get more (or fewer) inodew _without_ having to change partition sizes. Most significantly, one can do this -- change the number of inodes, that is -- *without* having to destroy/recreate any other partitions on the same physical device. SECONDLY, if this happened -during- the install, and the complaint was about "/var" -- as distinct from something like '/a/var', or '/mnt/var' Then the problem is *NOT* on the drives you are installing *ONTO*, but on the media you are installing _from_. At a guess, the installer is using /var -- probably /var/tmp -- to keep scratchpad files in, and there are not enough inodes for the installer. could it be unpacking tarfiles there, move/copy onto the 'target' media? You're installing from a memory stick right? You may need to rebuild the filesystem on the stick, _manually_ specifying a larger number of inodes for the filesystem that /var is part of.