[justinsaccount]

> The simplest fix would probably be to make /boot large enough by default (in the order of 10GB or 20GB or so -- the current size is 512MB IIRC).

Sure, I'll just use 1/6th of SSD to store 60 megabytes.

  $ du -hs /boot/
  56M	/boot/

If 512M is not enough space for /boot you're doing something wrong.

[Sir_Substance]

>If 512M is not enough space for /boot you're doing something wrong.

I don't know what planet you're living on but it's certainly not this one. Between a Ubuntu desktop, a laptop and personal server with multiple Ubuntu VM's on it, all of which are kept up rigorously to date, I fix this problem at least three times a year, every year.

The command line process to fix it[1] is a multi-stage mess of dense bash-foo that comes with a 140 word, two paragraph explanation so that /ubuntu veterans/ can figure out what is going on without resorting to scouring the man page for flags. The friendly GUI process to fix it relies on a third party tool that is no longer maintained[2].

It is not possible to explain to non-technical users what is happening here, which means the only thing they can do when they see this is call their technical friend and cry for help. This is exactly the kind of user experience that makes people think Linux is not ready for widespread desktop use.

This is definitely something the OS should take care of itself. I'm ignorant of the challenges that caused it to be this way in the first place, but in my ignorance I would advocate that:

a) the partition be made larger by default b) the OS auto-purge any kernel package more than three revisions old

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/89710/how-do-i-free-up-more-... [2] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-tweak/

[lloeki]

Here is my old-timey one-liner personal solution[0] for it that has worked flawlessly so far, obscure theoretical edge-cases be damned, because the non-edge case situation is just awfully worse and practically impactful.

(warning, rant inside)

[0] https://gist.github.com/lloeki/520acee8ba3b44c532c7

[kobeya]

Um, isn't the fix `sudo apt auto-remove --purge`, which autodetects unused kernels? What am I missing?

[tedivm]

If you do not run that command before /boot fills up, and you have a full /boot with a partially installed kernel, then that command fails. So this works fine if you remember to call it regularly, but it does not solve the problem once it occurs.

[kobeya]

Interesting. I haven't encountered that edge case. I've many times filled /boot and resolved by doing an auto remove.

[collinmanderson]

It seems silly to me that I need to manage this myself. Why do I need to be worrying about different kernel versions? I just want to make websites.

[Sir_Substance]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14005528

[alphapapa]

Following the chain of links and answers and explanations, we come to the conf file that says in the comments that it commonly results in two (2) kernels being saved, but can sometimes results in three (3) being saved.

IOW, it does automatically remove old kernels, it just keeps the last 2-3.

So, yes, run "apt-get autoremove", that's it.

[ikurei]

I think it has solved the problem for me, but still is not a good solution for anyone who would answer "What's a terminal?"

I love having a terminal with bash and use it constantly, but I don't think it should be needed for the system to just go on working.

[dsacco]

I've been using Ubuntu either part or full time since 2007. I've literally never encountered this.

Which is not to say you're lying, I'm just sort of flabbergasted that this is an issue for so many people. Do you run autoremove much? Maybe that would solve it for you?

[sunstone]

I run ubuntu 16.04 on a laptop, desktop and a TV streamer and I get this all the time. My boot partition on the desktop is 15gig and it gets plugged every now and then.

[bazinga888]

I've hit this before, but honestly do not think it's a big deal. Sure the installer could default to a larger boot, but it's manually configurable during install. And cleaning it up once in a while is just good sys admin practice.

sudo bash -c "apt auto-remove --purge; apt update; apt upgrade" is what I usually run.

Prefer they focus engineering cycles on actual engineering problems.

[hollander]

Sorry, but Ubuntu is doing something wrong here, not me. This should be handled automatically. Ubuntu wants to be the system for everybody, but you can't expect people to open the terminal and fix this manually. Making boot 20GB is ridiculous, but 1GB should be no problem, and for me 2GB would be OK if that means that this problem will disappear forever.

And I believe my boot partition is only 256MB, and I didn't set it to that. That was a system default.

[dustinkirkland]

Ubuntu is absolutely doing something wrong here and we'll get that fixed. Thanks!

[cbhl]

Yup! That "something wrong" is installing every single kernel update for two, three, four years and not deleting any of the old kernels.

Super common in enterprise deployments. I ran into this a bunch on my $EMPLOYER-issued workstation.

[cookiecaper]

The installer should handle this. When you apt-get upgrade anything besides the kernel, does it leave the old version lying around?

I understand that it may be wise to keep the old kernel around so the system can be booted in case there is a hardware incompatibility or breakage in the new release, but that justifies only one additional kernel. Ubuntu keeps those kernels sitting there until you `apt-get autoremove`, and that means that unless you're running that command routinely, the boot partition is going to fill up at some point, no matter how big you make it.

This is especially a problem for people who use the unattended-upgrades package. I've autoremoved and had it clean up almost a gig of old kernel images before.

[lukeschlather]

If you're running updates weekly it will fill up on Ubuntu. This is a recent problem, and I've only experienced it on my laptop with full-disk encryption.

The update process generates on the order of 100mb/month.

[jayess]

It's not new. It's been happening to me since I started using Ubuntu in the 8.x range.