On 8/3/2020 2:49 AM, Andrew Cater wrote:
If you have room for two kernels and you are booting from the newest one: potentially, you can remove the older one to gain some space. If apt update installs another kernel of the same version so you have two 4.19 - reboot when the apt run finishes, make sure that the new kernel boots and runs fine, then remove the older one. The trick is to check that you are booting from the latest version - you don't want to remove a running kernel :(
That is not quite accurate. One the kernel is loaded, it can be moved, removed, or updated. The machine does not care. If it is no longer available where the boot system expects to find it, then it must be replaced and if necessary the boot system must be updated t point to the new kernel before the machine can boot again using the existing boot system. Generally, the machine can be booted using a different system, such as a live CD, for example, even if the existing boot system is broken.
> ????????Um, the kernel is only about 5M in size.?? With 133M free, there
> should be plenty of room for multiple kernels.?? The initrd image is
> usually under 40M, so there should be room for the entire boot
image to
> be duplicated.?? Note the current use is only 41%.?? You shouldn't need
> more space, per se, except that normally the initrd is temporarily
> uncompressed while it is being created.?? I think you could get around
> this by employing chroot.
My initrd is 69 M...
That is pretty typical.
> ????????To answer your question, I am given to understand /boot/efi is a
> vfat file system, so it should be possible to shrink it, move the
/boot
> partition, and then expand it.
However both /boot/efi and /boot are critoical for the booting process,
thus my concerns.
Yes, and it is also one reason why I think using chroot to create virtual environment on a larger file system and then copying the result over to the existing partition might be a better, safer solution for someone not well experienced in managing the boot process.