[ALUG] apt-get error: Dynamic MMap ran out of room

[Brett Parker]

On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 07:24:59AM +0100, sagr wrote:
> Our fileserver is running an ancient version of Debian:(Linux zebra
> 2.4.18-bf2.4 #1 Son Apr 14 09:53:28 CEST 2002 i586 unknown). 

This doesn't actually tell us which version of debian it is, but from a
guess as to how old that kernel is, and that it ends in bf2.4, I'd say
that it's either woody or sarge.

What's the contents of the /etc/debian_version file? ;)

> I thought however it would be nice to try and install geneweb on it
> (if indeed this package is available for this ancient Debian).
> However when I try to do an apt-get I receive an error message saying
> that MMap has run out of room.  I am a bit confused as there is about
> 4GB spare in /.

MMap is memory allocation, not disk space - add the following like to
/etc/apt/apt.conf (create the file if it doesn't exist):

APT::Cache-Limit "20000000";

And that should get it working. Other than serving files, does that
machine do anything? It might be worth setting aside a (few) hours to
upgrade it to a recent version of debian.

Cheers,
-- 
Brett Parker