How to fix E: You don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/ in APT

Run these commands to remove cached package files:

sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoclean

- apt-get clean: Removes all cached .deb files from /var/cache/apt/archives/
- apt-get autoclean: Removes only obsolete cached files that can no longer be downloaded from repositories

This typically frees up several hundred MB to a few GB of space.

Run this command to remove packages that were automatically installed as dependencies but are no longer needed:

sudo apt-get autoremove

You may also want to remove unnecessary packages you've manually installed:

sudo apt-get remove PACKAGENAME

Replace PACKAGENAME with any unnecessary packages. You can list installed packages with apt list --installed.

Verify how much space you've freed and identify what else is consuming disk space:

df -h /
sudo du -h --max-depth=1 /var | sort -h | tail -n 10

The first command shows overall root partition usage. The second shows what's consuming the most space in /var. Common culprits include:
- /var/log: System logs (check with ls -lahS /var/log)
- /var/lib: Databases, Docker images, package managers
- /var/cache: Other cached application data

You can safely delete old log files if needed:

sudo rm /var/log/auth.log.1 /var/log/syslog.1

If after cleaning the cache you still lack space, identify and remove large applications you don't need:

sudo apt-get remove APPLICATIONNAME
sudo apt-get autoremove

Common space-consuming applications:
- Docker/Podman: Often stores gigabytes of images
- LibreOffice: Large office suite
- Unnecessary language packs or fonts

Check what's actually using space:

du -h --max-depth=1 /var/lib | sort -h | tail -n 5

Once you've freed sufficient space, retry your original command:

sudo apt-get install PACKAGENAME
# or
sudo apt-get upgrade

You should now have enough space to download and cache the necessary package files.