So I’ve been trying to update/upgrade my system/applications for the last few days and it has been erroring, I ignored it and now when I try to sudo apt upgrade it tells me that I have “Low Disk Space on “boot” The volume “boot” has only 0 bytes disk space remaining.”

What happens when I run sudo apt upgrade:

user@user:~$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... 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.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
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)

Screenshot of /boot:

I am running elementary OS 6.1 Jólnir, built on Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS using the Linux kernel 5.11.0-43-generic.

  • Kromonos
    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
      0•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_laptopOP
        -2•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
          0•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_laptopOP
            -2•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_laptopOP
      -2•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?

        • ghost_laptopOP
          -1•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
            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•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_laptopOP
              -1•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
                3•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

                • @asdflkjasdf@lemmy.ml
                  2•2 years ago

                  Okay, I ran sudo apt remove linux-image-5.11.0-40 and then it started doing some stuff, from what I remember reading it did something like trying to uninstall kernel 40 but also wanting to reinstall it as soon as it did that, and complain about dependencies. Now my PC is bricked, I try to boot it and it doesn’t let me decrypt my machine so it stays in boot menu frozen even though it gives me two choices. Before that I can choose advanced settings from where I can choose which kernel to run my machine, but it just gives me this error:

                  • krolden
                    1•2 years ago

                    You didn’t make the new initrd so its trying to look for a kernel that isn’t there. Boot to a lived and unlock the disk with cryptsetup and mount, then chroot into your install and rerun update-initramfs and clear out your old kernels in /boot. If that doesn’t work, backup all your files and reinstall unless you wanna continue down this rabbit hole of recovering a broke install.

                    You won’t like hearing this but breaking your install is just another step in learning what not to do when running a linux system. Its how I learned and how everyone I know learned. Break it and fix it, if it isn’t broke then break it and fix it anyway.