[ubuntu-in] Problem in 9.10 (grub wants more space)

[Onkar Shinde]

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 12:12 AM, Ramnarayan.K <ramnarayan.k at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Onkar Shinde <onkarshinde at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Using synaptic, search for packages starting with name linux-image.
>> See which ones have old version and uninstall them.
>>
> synaptic does not work, it starts up with the error (as posted earlier)

If synaptic does not work then try to use apt-get or aptitude. apt-get
has command completion so typing 'sudo apt-get --purge remove
linux-image' and pressing tab key twice should give you list of
matching package names.
If even apt-get does not work then use command completion with 'sudo dpkg -r'.

>
> There seem to be two possible solutions
>
> 1. To use a live cd and resize /boot
>
> 2. To go to the /boot and delete some of the older kernel related entries

None of these are necessary as of now.

>
> a 3rd option exists and that is to shift  /boot to another larger partition
>
> am not trying the 3rd - but will first try the above 2 and see which
> works and let the list know what happens
>
> ***
> The issue has led to a couple of questions
> 1. What should be a good size for a /boot - considering that if some
> one has a LTS version - which means 2 years and the fact that the
> kernel releases have been fairly frequent. My own Ubuntu 9.10 was
> installed in Dec 2009 and as of now (june 2010) a 100 MB boot
> partition has proved inadequate.

On an average the files corresponding to a kernel installation from
repos are approx 20 MB. So you can do calculation.
Usually it is not necessary to keep old kernels around if the latest
update boots properly and there are no regressions in other
functionality.

>
> 2. Is there a need for a separate /boot partition, if so why ??

In some weird situations you may need it. For example you want to use
a file system for '/' which is not supported by boot loader yet (ex
btrfs). In that case you may want to have a separate /boot with a
supported file system (ex. ext3).
Or you may want to have /boot at the start of hard disk so
kernel/initrd loading is a bit faster.
In most scenarios separate /boot is not necessary and does not offer
any significant advantages.


Onkar