Re: /boot size and kernel updates

["Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com>]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2022 at 09:41:43AM +0000, Peter von Kaehne wrote:
> I mostly let the installer do what it likes to do when installing Debian and this has worked out fine until the last couple installs on UEFI rather than legacy boot. 
> 
> It now appears that the automatic installer does not get size of /boot right - even with only one new kernel update wanting to install itself it often fails with lack of space. One solution I found is to change the initramfs compression algorithm, which gives me space for two full kernels and initramfses. But this is still problematic. Are there other solutions other than reinstall with a larger boot partition? 
> 

If you do have a working Debian, then there ought to be space for 2 x kernel
+ initrd in /boot (although I see in another thread that someone is complaining
that kernel images have increased massively in size recently.)

> For me the main problem are a couple of elderly relatives etc whose computers I administer mostly in a hands off fashion - with automatic security updates only and occasionally some more work during visits. 
> 

Understood :) In theory, at least, if you get a kernel update, you should 
arrange to reboot to ensure that you're running the latest kernel - many
of the kernel updates are there specifically for security reasons.

In practice, you can then apt remove / autoremove older kernels that you are no longer running.

Ideally, you shouldn't need more than the current kernel and, perhaps, the
previous version. If the current kernel works on the reboot, then you should
be able to remove all previous variants with the same major version number.
(So if 5.10.0-19 is working, you can remove 5.10.0-18 and prior versions).

So - in theory - my /boot partition on this machine is 471M but only
68M of that is used by the vmlinuz and initrd for linux-image-5.10.0-19-amd64
(which is actually also 5.10.149-2) leaving space for a few more kernels
at least.

Hope this helps, and with every good wish, as ever,

Andy Cater

> Now I am needing to look into sorting out remote access or simply disable all updates, neither of which is ideal for any variety of reasons. 
> 
> Any clever suggestions which bring me back into a place where a few kernels can easily install without things getting too crowded? 
> 
> Sent from my phone. Please forgive misspellings and weird “corrections”