More space needed in /boot?

Hello!

I was trying to update the system and got this warning:

$ sudo apt upgrade
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libassuan0        linux-headers-6.10.6-common
  libgspell-1-2     linux-headers-6.10.6-mnt-reform-arm64
  libiniparser1     linux-image-6.10.6-mnt-reform-arm64
  libjsoncpp25      linux-kbuild-6.10.6
  libllvm18         reform-qcacld2-6.10.7-mnt-reform-arm64
  liblzma-dev       reform-qcacld2-6.10.9-mnt-reform-arm64
  libstd-rust-1.79
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.

Upgrading:
  cmake       gtk-update-icon-cache           linux-image-mnt-reform-arm64
  cmake-data  libcups2t64                     linux-libc-dev
  dirmngr     libgtk-4-1                      nano
  gnupg       libgtk-4-common                 procps
  gnupg-l10n  libinput-bin                    python3-html5lib
  gpg         libinput10                      python3-more-itertools
  gpg-agent   libproc2-0                      reform-qcacld2
  gpgconf     libxcb-ewmh2                    thunderbird
  gpgsm       libxcb-icccm4                   tmux
  gpgv        linux-headers-mnt-reform-arm64

Installing dependencies:
  libjemalloc2
  linux-headers-6.10.11-common
  linux-headers-6.10.11-mnt-reform-arm64
  linux-image-6.10.11-mnt-reform-arm64
  linux-kbuild-6.10.11
  reform-qcacld2-6.10.11-mnt-reform-arm64

Suggested packages:
  firmware-linux-free  linux-doc-6.10  debian-kernel-handbook

Not upgrading:
  gpiod

Summary:
  Upgrading: 29, Installing: 6, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 1
  Download size: 164 MB
  Space needed: 211 MB / 983 GB available
  └─ in /boot:  181 MB / 124 MB available

Warning: More space needed in /boot than available: 181 MB > 124 MB, installation may fail
Continue anyway? [y/N]

What would be the best way to address this issue?

$ lsblk
NAME              MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS
mmcblk2           179:0    0 116.6G  0 disk  
├─mmcblk2p1       179:1    0   488M  0 part  /boot
└─mmcblk2p2       179:2    0 116.1G  0 part  
nvme0n1           259:0    0   1.8T  0 disk  
└─reform_crypt    254:0    0   1.8T  0 crypt 
  ├─reformvg-swap 254:1    0     8G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
  └─reformvg-root 254:2    0   1.8T  0 lvm   /
mmcblk2boot0      179:256  0     4M  1 disk  
mmcblk2boot1      179:512  0     4M  1 disk

Not sure where 124MB figure came from. Thanks.

Sorry to have bothered.

$ sudo apt autoremove

took care of it.

2 Likes

The size of the /boot partition is simply copied from debian-installer which chooses 488 MiB by default. You can see the free space on it by running:

df -h /boot

The 124 MB should’ve been the remaining free space on your /boot. Each kernel and initramfs take about 30 MiB each, so with 488 MiB you can install around 8 different kernel versions at the same time.