what I did was try to remove some older files and got some room back.
Now I will try to run synaptic again
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ sudo rm *2.6.24-16*
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ sudo rm *2.6.24-17*
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ ls
abi-2.6.20-16-generic config-2.6.24-18-generic
initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic.bak lost+found
System.map-2.6.24-21-generic
abi-2.6.24-18-generic config-2.6.24-19-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-18-generic memtest86+.bin
vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic
abi-2.6.24-19-generic config-2.6.24-21-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-18-generic.bak System.map-2.6.20-16-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.24-18-generic
abi-2.6.24-21-generic grub
initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic System.map-2.6.24-18-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic
config-2.6.20-16-generic initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic.bak System.map-2.6.24-19-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 12G 4.5G 6.1G 43% /
varrun 502M 156K 502M 1% /var/run
varlock 502M 0 502M 0% /var/lock
udev 502M 132K 502M 1% /dev
devshm 502M 12K 502M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 502M 33M 469M 7%
/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1 99M 60M 35M 64% /boot
/dev/sda6 39G 710M 37G 2% /home
/dev/sda5 3.7G 733M 2.8G 21% /var