why does apt upgade generate several images

Oliver Grawert ogra at ubuntu.com
Fri Feb 25 12:59:49 UTC 2022


hi,
Am Freitag, dem 25.02.2022 um 07:50 +0100 schrieb robert rottermann:
> 
> Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.4.0-96-generic
> 
> 
> why so many images?. Why not only one?
> 
the initrd.img contains all modules and scripts required to find your
root filesystem and to drive the system during early boot (graphics
driver to show the boot splash, the boot splash itself, modules to find
the disk controller, modules for filesystems etc).

all these modules come from the kernels, so they are tied to the kernel
version ... all scripts that run inside that img come from some deb
package on your filesystem ... 

if one of the bits inside the img is updated on the filesystem, the
images need to be re-generated ... 

since apt does not know if i.e. just a new splash screen picture or if
some new controller driver module was installed, it simply re-generates 
all existing initrd.img files ... 

it could admittedly be cleverer here, but is not :)

as others pointed out already apt always keeps three kernel versions
around, so you can go back in case some issue shows up ...

ciao
	oli
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