Question

0

Updating Ubuntu when /boot partition is almost full

rated 0 times [ 0] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 993 / 2 Years ago, sun, february 13, 2022, 12:30:02

My /boot partition is 500M in size, as I thought it would be enough when I did the installation. It seems it isn't.

Now it's almost full

/dev/sda1               446M  352M   61M  86% /boot

Doing apt-get upgrade doesn't succeed:

update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-25-generic

Error 24 : Write error : cannot write compressed block 

E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 lz4 -9 -l 24

update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-25-generic with 1.

dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure):

 installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1

Errors were encountered while processing:

 initramfs-tools

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Contents of the /boot:

total 343M

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 248K kesä   17 01:38 config-5.11.0-22-generic

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 248K heinä   9 20:42 config-5.11.0-25-generic

drwx------  6 root root 4,0K tammi   1  1970 efi

drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4,0K heinä  23 13:13 grub

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 153M heinä  10 14:22 initrd.img-5.11.0-22-generic

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 151M heinä  23 13:13 initrd.img-5.11.0-25-generic

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   28 heinä  23 06:04 initrd.img.old -> initrd.img-5.11.0-22-generic

drwx------  2 root root  16K heinä   6 08:52 lost+found

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 179K elo    18  2020 memtest86+.bin

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 181K elo    18  2020 memtest86+.elf

-rw-r--r--  1 root root 181K elo    18  2020 memtest86+_multiboot.bin

-rw-------  1 root root 5,7M kesä   17 01:38 System.map-5.11.0-22-generic

-rw-------  1 root root 5,7M heinä   9 20:42 System.map-5.11.0-25-generic

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   25 heinä  23 06:04 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-5.11.0-25-generic

-rw-------  1 root root  15M kesä   17 01:55 vmlinuz-5.11.0-22-generic

-rw-------  1 root root  15M heinä   9 21:04 vmlinuz-5.11.0-25-generic

lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root   25 heinä  23 06:04 vmlinuz.old -> vmlinuz-5.11.0-22-generic

Do I need to resize my boot partition? Is there a way to do the upgrade without resizing boot partition?

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

wherejuic

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 53

Total Questions: 123

Total Answers: 117

Location: Zambia

Member since Mon, Jan 23, 2023

1 Year ago

wherejuic questions

1 How to check file size and then echo?

Thu, Aug 19, 21, 18:07, 3 Years ago

1 Ranger: "zip error: Nothing to do!" - But it works in bash!

Wed, May 12, 21, 03:23, 3 Years ago

1 two finger scrolling and tap to click stopped working in Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish

Tue, Dec 7, 21, 21:48, 2 Years ago

1 Ubuntu 22.04 how do I remove google drive from favorites

Sat, Nov 13, 21, 05:27, 3 Years ago

1 Ubuntu 21.10 boots to black screen

Mon, Sep 5, 22, 17:36, 2 Years ago

View All

answered 2 Years ago emuralm · Accepted Answer

Based on what I see in your /boot volume, it looks to me like you need to resize that volume. BE SURE YOU BACK UP EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU START!

I say this because the initramfs entries for two kernels are taking up close to two thirds of the space you've allowed in /boot (with other files taking up most of the remaining third). There's not room for another kernel, headers, config, and initramfs. As a temporary fix, you could follow @Henzo's answer to remove the older of the two kernels, but I like to be sure I have at least one older kernel in case a bug pops up or a file gets damaged.

If you're going to put your boot files in their own volume, I'd suggest (with modern 5.x kernels) you need to allow 2 GB to ensure you have enough for two or three older kernels plus the one you're installing for your upgrade. With modern hard disks and SSDs, this isn't a huge amount of space, but it's cheap insurance against having to resize a critical partition...