apparently my problem is I cannot update initramfs:

update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.12.41+deb13-amd64 zstd: error 70 : Write error : cannot write block : No space left on device

After checking KDE Partition Manager for /boot and /boot/efi both have free space left:

/boot size: 488 MiB

/boot used: 396.26 MiB

/boot/efi size: 512 MiB

/boot/efi used: 10.52 MiB

dpkg -l | grep linux-image | awk '{print$2}' shows:

linux-image-6.1.0-37-amd64

linux-image-6.1.0-38-amd64

linux-image-6.12.41+deb13-amd64

linux-image-amd64

I am now using debian 13 on linux-image-6.1.0-38-amd64 because linux-image-6.12.41+deb13-amd64 won’t load from grub2. I don’t want to get rid of linux-image-6.1.0-37-amd64 till I solve this issue

  • jrgd@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    Checking the /boot size on my Fedora install, I partitioned out a gibibyte for the 3 kernel plus recovery kernel setup, which takes up about 338 MiB in total. Depending on out-of-tree kernel modules and bootloader modifications installed, your initramfs images could be larger. A few things to look for:

    • the size of your current initramfs and vmlinuz image(s)
    • any kernel modules you needed to install alongside your system (v4l2-loopback, nvidia, realtek, etc.)
    • If there are other large files present in the boot partition

    If everything there looks fine and/or is necessary, you might need to expand your /boot partition (either reinstall if new system or offline partition shrinking, moving after a data backup if you have personal files you care about).

  • HumanPrimate@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I ran into a problem like this once, and after banging my head against the wall for days it turned out the solution was just running

    sudo apt autoremove
    

    That took care of removing a bunch of old stuff in the boot partition that I will not pretend to understand.

  • mlfh@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 month ago

    With the size of modern linux kernels, I think 1GiB for a /boot partition is the absolute minimum I would go for a current full-sized distributuon. You’ll run into these out-of-space issues on updates all the time otherwise.

    • antimidas@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Yep, infuriatingly installers often default to small /boot volumes, and if you want to change that value better say goodbye to automatic partitioning. Although, after trying to make the installer behave, giving up and manually formatting the drive, I finally got the push required to set up both encrypted root and encrypted /home on separate drives.

      Currently I use an 8 GiB /boot, but I really think Debian installer should start making 2 GiB or even 4 GiB /boot the default now. Dumb to have the installer shoot itself in the foot like this. Ubuntu still does the same thing for some reason, as if we don’t have room on the drives to fit a bit more futureproof /boot there.