Bug#1087137: improve experience where fix-missing is suggested after kernel cannot be installed because /boot is too small
Package: apt
Version: 2.9.10
Severity: normal
Hi,
maybe there is something that apt can do to make the situation easier
where due to too many kernels installed (because apt autoremove wasn't
run), /boot became too small to hold all the kernels. Apt then tells the
user to run "sudo apt --fix-broken install" but that will fail because
dpkg is unable to --unpack the kernel image because of "failed to write
(No space left on device)". With a system at that point "apt autoremove"
is also not working.
I don't even know how to get out of this situation without trying this
out myself and I've been using Debian for a bit. Just "apt remove
linux-image-${some version that was suggested to be auto-removed}" is
also tricky because the associated linux-headers package depends on it,
leading to further confusion by the user.
I'm currently trying to remote-debug this with somebody and it is not a
fun experience. Maybe apt can do something to improve this situation?
Yes, this could've been prevented by the user running auto-remove more
frequently, but this happened to a new user, so maybe apt can do
something to either not let them run into this or let them get out of it
more easily?
Essentially right now the user goes from:
- runs "apt upgrade"
- gets "Errors were encountered while processing linux-image.deb"
- runs "apt upgrade" again
- gets "run apt --fix-broken install"
- runs "apt --fix-broken install"
- gets "no space left on device"
- runs "apt autoremove"
- gets "run apt --fix-broken install"
- runs "apt --fix-broken install"
- gets "no space left on device"
- tries "apt remove linux-image-${version}"
- gets "unmet dependencies, run apt --fix-broken install"
I don't want to know how to proceed. This bug report is about apt not
being very helpful in letting the user figure out how to get out of
this. Since this is about the linux kernel, the only real way for the
user to free up space in /boot is to remove a kernel. But they cannot.
What do you think?
Thanks!
cheers, josch
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