Low Disk Space on "boot"

ghost_laptop · edit-2 2 years ago

Low Disk Space on "boot"

Kromonos · 2 years ago

Have you tried apt autoremove to clean up old packages?

ghost_laptop · 2 years ago

Yes, it gives an error very similar to running sudo apt upgrade, in fact running this command is what triggers the “Low Disk Space on “boot”” warning.

user@user:/$ sudo apt autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
4 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.136ubuntu6.6) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Setting up linux-firmware (1.187.25) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-43-generic
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/dm-2
I: (/dev/mapper/data-swap)
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.
Error 24 : Write error : cannot write compressed block 
E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 lz4 -9 -l 24
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-43-generic with 1.
dpkg: error processing package linux-firmware (--configure):
 installed linux-firmware package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Setting up linux-image-5.11.0-44-generic (5.11.0-44.48~20.04.2) ...
I: /boot/initrd.img.old is now a symlink to initrd.img-5.11.0-44-generic
Setting up linux-image-5.11.0-46-generic (5.11.0-46.51~20.04.1) ...
I: /boot/initrd.img is now a symlink to initrd.img-5.11.0-46-generic
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.136ubuntu6.6) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-43-generic
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/dm-2
I: (/dev/mapper/data-swap)
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.
Error 24 : Write error : cannot write compressed block 
E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 lz4 -9 -l 24
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-43-generic with 1.
dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure):
 installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for linux-image-5.11.0-44-generic (5.11.0-44.48~20.04.2) ...
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-44-generic
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/dm-2
I: (/dev/mapper/data-swap)
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.
Error 24 : Write error : cannot write compressed block 
E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 lz4 -9 -l 24
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-44-generic with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-5.11.0-44-generic (--configure):
 installed linux-image-5.11.0-44-generic package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for linux-image-5.11.0-46-generic (5.11.0-46.51~20.04.1) ...
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-46-generic
I: The initramfs will attempt to resume from /dev/dm-2
I: (/dev/mapper/data-swap)
I: Set the RESUME variable to override this.
Error 24 : Write error : cannot write compressed block 
E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 lz4 -9 -l 24
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-5.11.0-46-generic with 1.
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools exited with return code 1
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-5.11.0-46-generic (--configure):
 installed linux-image-5.11.0-46-generic package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 linux-firmware
 initramfs-tools
 linux-image-5.11.0-44-generic
 linux-image-5.11.0-46-generic
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Kromonos · edit-2 2 years ago

You could try apt remove linux-image-5.11.0-43-generic to delete an old kernel manually. Then upgrade and autoremove again.

krolden · 2 years ago

Yep either this or expand your boot partition.

Ive sometimes had to boot into a livecd and then delete the old kernel images cos the system wouldn’t boot

ghost_laptop · 2 years ago

Removing linux-image-5.11.0-43-generic 

You are running a kernel (version 5.11.0-43-generic) and attempting to remove the same version.                     

This can make the system unbootable as it will remove /boot/vmlinuz-5.11.0-43-generic and all modules under the

This happens when I run that command, it scares me, will something break? Is it better to expand my boot partition?

krolden · edit-2 2 years ago

You should be OK as long as you rerun apt upgrade and/or update-initramfs so it properly installs the new kernel.

Be sure to remove any other old kernels you may have installed.

ghost_laptop · 2 years ago

So, as soon as I run the command to remove that kernel y run sudo apt upgrade or update-initramfs and that’s it? How do I know if I have any other old kernel installed?

ghost_laptop · 2 years ago

Removing linux-image-5.11.0-43-generic 

You are running a kernel (version 5.11.0-43-generic) and attempting to remove the same version.                     

This can make the system unbootable as it will remove /boot/vmlinuz-5.11.0-43-generic and all modules under the

This happens when I run that command, it scares me, will something break? Is it better to expand my boot partition?

@libinator@lemmy.ml · 2 years ago

What does uname -a output?

ghost_laptop · 2 years ago

Linux device 5.11.0-43-generic #47~20.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Mon Dec 13 11:06:56 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

@libinator@lemmy.ml · edit-2 2 years ago

This means you run version 5.11.0-43-generic

Try removing linux-image-5.11.0-40-generic, which is the oldest version in your screenshot

@libinator@lemmy.ml · 2 years ago

sudo apt remove linux-image-5.11.0-40-generic

I don’t use a debian based distro now, so you should probably wait until someone else says doing this is safe

ghost_laptop · 2 years ago

Okay, but once I removed what do I do? Because otherwise I will have an OS without its kernel, which is not nice.

@libinator@lemmy.ml · 2 years ago

That’s not what will happen. Note the version number in my reply. Ubuntu based distros won’t remove old kernels after updating to newer kernels. This is probably what’s taking space in your /boot partition.

In the screenshot you posted, there are 5 kernels:

vmlinuz-5.11.0-40-generic
vmlinuz-5.11.0-41-generic
vmlinuz-5.11.0-43-generic
vmlinuz-5.11.0-44-generic
vmlinuz-5.11.0-46-generic

But there are only three initramfs images:

initrd.img-5.11.0-40-generic
initrd.img-5.11.0-41-generic
initrd.img-5.11.0-43-generic

It is likely that your boot partition doesn’t have enough space to store the initramfs image for booting kernels 5.11.0-44 and 5.11.0-46. To make enough space, you can remove the old kernels. According to your uname -a output, you are currently running kernel 5.11.0-43. And I assume you have no problem with the current kernel. If that is the case, there is no need for kernel 5.11.0-40 and 5.11.0-41.

So, you can remove the two kernels. Old kernels are probably not removed by default so that you can boot to the previous kernel if the latest kernel has issues. After doing so, reboot to ensure nothing has gone wrong. Now, try sudo apt upgrade again, which should hopefully install the latest kernel and generate its initrd file. Reboot to the newly installed kernel and try sudo apt autoremove to remove any remaining pacakges as @kromonos@fapsi.be suggested