techtonik said:
Shouldn't installer check for available space/inodes prior to installing ports and packages? Seems like a bug to me.
I don't think it does and I am certain that at least in the past it did not (what happened to you also happened to me several years ago). I suppose you could consider it a bug, or at least a non-nicety, but it is not exactly trivial to do it in a way that is always correct.
For example, you could always on the side, mid-installation, mount a new filesystem or create a link to a new bigger area and then you *would* have more space. How is the installer supposed to know if you are going to do that? Or mid-install, you could delete some stuff you don't want... Mostly it would require the installer to have info as to just how many files and space is need, something that changes constantly with all the work being done. And calculating how much space is needed is also hard to be exact because of file system overhead.
Nevertheless, the installer *could* at least issue a warning that you are likely to be lacking sufficient file space (or inodes), given a ROUGH estimate of what is needed. I believe the Handbook and elsewhere *does* give you a very very rough idea of recommended space also.
BTW, at least sysinstall is not all that smart to begin with. There are other, very serious flaws that I trip over constantly, some that cause the kernel to panic, so this particular "bug" is far from the worse that can be found with the installer.