Comment 43 for bug 541595

/usr is a stand alone partition apart from / as it turns out so I shrunk / by 900mb and grew /usr by about that that much and gave /var the rest. So, now /usr is 86% full but, apt-get install -f still says there is no space left on /usr:

apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libindicator6 libx264-116 libgtkspell3-0 libminiupnpc5
  libaccess-bridge-java-jni libaccess-bridge-java libmusicbrainz4c2a libvpx0
  libaudiofile0 libiso9660-7 libnl3 libattica0 icc-profiles-free libid3tag0
  libindicator3-6 libreadline5 libnatpmp1 libmatroska4 libllvm2.9
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  linux-headers-3.2.0-24 linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic
  linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  linux-headers-3.2.0-24 linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic
  linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 105 not upgraded.
27 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/13.3 MB of archives.
After this operation, 78.4 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 321737 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking linux-headers-3.2.0-24 (from .../linux-headers-3.2.0-24_3.2.0-24.37_all.deb) ...
Unpacking linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic (from .../linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae (from .../linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb (--unpack):
 error creating directory `./usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae/include/config/x86/internode/cache': No space left on device
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                              dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

 I just used root to create that subdirectory /usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae/include/config/x86/internode/cache but, then apt-get install -f still gets:

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb (--unpack):
 unable to create `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae/include/config/x86/cmov.h.dpkg-new' (while processing `./usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.0-24-generic-pae/include/config/x86/cmov.h'): No space left on device

where df /usr now says:
df /usr
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 4938576 4021544 669556 86% /usr

  Whats the deal?