Is there a workaround?

Currently I'm down to 38MB..apparently I was told I need more than this.

Had problems trying to update the apps before due to 'disk full'

Don't really want to uninstall any of the apps or games I got on N900 at the moment.

If the apps are all going to be installed on the little 256MB of space available, I think we got a big problem here.

Well, this has been discussed a lot. Check for non-optified apps from extras-devel or testing. If you have a lot of apps installed, maybe remove some of them
Not really much of a solution out there yet

How do I check to see if the app is optified or not?

Have you tried rebooting ? Apparently that will clear up some space if you install multiple apps concurrently.

Note that https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5450 is related here. Some fixes will be available in a software update that will be out soon(TM).

Is this software update something that will require complete reflash? or is it like a computer-based software update (individual package updates).

You don't need more than that.

Venomrush, do you mind detailing which repositories have you enabled? Only Extras or did you go deeper at Extras-testing or Extras-devel?

Also, please list the apps you have installed so we can help you (and others like you) by filing bugs in the case one of these apps is not optified and not aware of the issue.

To anybody else reading this thread, now you see that there is probably a good reason to have a big disclaimer at the top of http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing & http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-devel

For the repositories I got:

1. Nokia Applications
2. Nokia Software System Updates
3. Maemo Extras
4. Maemo Extras-Testing
5. Maemo 5 SDK Tools
6. Tajuma
7. Maemo Devel

It failed to update for Devel when rootfs is full. See screenshot - http://pixelpipe.com/item/7ce5dd3f-1...c-e90f03818414

The apps I got installed:

100boxes
account-plugin-haze
AlmostTI Graphing Calc Emulator
Attitude
Bounce Evolution
Countdown Home Desktop Widget
Crash Reporter
Crimson Fields
Custom Operator Name Applet
Documents To Go Viewer Edition
eCoach
Facebook Widget and Photo Uploader
FM Radio Player
free42
Gonvert
Hermes
Hex-a-Hop
liqflow
loqtorch
load-applet
loacation-test-gui
Mad Bomber
maelstrom
mauku
mbarcode
Microfeed backend
Midori
Mirror
OpenTTD
Pidgin Internet Messenger
Pixelpipe Upload and SHare
qik
Quicknote
Recorder
rootsh
SolarWolf
Sopwith
SuperTux
systeminfowidget (the one with memory leak fix)
The Ur-Quan Masters
theremin
Transmission
tuner
Variations on Rockdodger
Witter
xournal
zoutube


Note that all these apps versions = the version in Extras-Testing and not the newest version found in Devel

And you have 38 MB free on rootfs? I don't see any problem here.

Two things, midori and python, are eating 20-30 MB from your rootfs. Update to python is done, but there's some difficulty to get it deployed to Extras and to devices. Midori just needs to be fixed.