touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Ronny Ager-Wick <ronny@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Completely agree with @grey - it is unacceptable that such a simple
thing will consistently create problems for ALL ubuntu users, many of
which will not be comfortable with entering "sudo apt-get -y autoremove"
or whatever in terminal.

I do understand the issue though - each kernel is a separate package,
and as such, apt can't just uninstall it without asking.

So I suggest that as default, instead of linux-image-generic depending on the latest kernel package, create a new pakcage, perhaps called "linux-image-generic-current", which does not /depend/ on the latest kernel package, but /is/ the latest kernel package (or a copy at least). This way. when a new kernel is released, this package will get a new version and the kernel will be downloaded and *replace* the old one. There may be a catch here, but I am sure if there is someone knowledgeable will tell me :)
It's important that this is the default, as less knowledgeable users will then avoid the issue without having to do anything.

Yes, I know that this way, you can't boot on an older kernel. This is rarely an issue though, as most people don't do that. For the few cases it is needed, maybe one could add another package "linux-image-generic-previous" for the second to the last version and/or "linux-image-generic-original" for the first kernel to be released for the current version of Ubuntu?
Of course it's completely possible for a user to install one specific kernel separately, which they can use in case the latest one can't boot.

For people who genuinely needs the current way of always retaining the
previous kernels, linux-image-generic could continue to be maintained as
well as linux-image-generic-current, and either of the two can be
installed, but not both. I believe this is possible with apt?

I also suggest the default boot partition size to be 5% of total disk space, min 250MB (current default), max 2GB.
But no matter how big you make it, eventually it will run out of space anyway, so only increasing the size of the /boot partition is just delaying the issue.

Alternatively, can a cron or startup job be set up as default (on all
new installations of Ubuntu), that runs "apt-get -y autoremove", perhaps
only for linux-kernel packages (if possible) at boot or every month or
so?

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to initramfs-tools in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/798414

Title:
  update-initramfs should produce a more helpful error when there isn't
  enough  free space

Status in initramfs-tools:
  Confirmed
Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: initramfs-tools

  When generating a new initramfs there is no check for available free
  space, subsequently its possible for update-initramfs to fail due to a
  lack of free space.  This is resulting in package installation
  failures for initramfs-tools.  For example:

  Setting up initramfs-tools (0.98.8ubuntu3) ...
  update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
  Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
  update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic

  gzip: stdout: No space left on device
  E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 gzip 1
  update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic
  dpkg: error processing initramfs-tools (--configure):
   subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

  WORKAROUND:

  Remove unused kernels using computer janitor (not in repositories for
  14.04 or later) or manually free space on your partition containing
  the /boot file system.

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