Subprocess failed: Error: RPM failed: installing package kernel-desktop-3.16.7-21.1.x86_64 needs 17MB on the /boot filesystem.
My /boot partition currently has 29.7mb free, so what is this message saying?
I got the same message trying YaST, too. And rebooting was no help.
Absent any other information, I guess I will expand /boot to something considerably larger (it’s currently 101 mb), but I am a little wary of messing with it. Other suggestions?
I run OpenSUSE 13.2, ext4 filesystem.
On 2015-04-23 06:26, rentpayer wrote:
>
> Trying to update using Apper I got the message:
>> Subprocess failed: Error: RPM failed: installing package
>> kernel-desktop-3.16.7-21.1.x86_64 needs 17MB on the /boot filesystem.
>>
> My /boot partition currently has 29.7mb free, so what is this message
> saying?
That you need more space, obviously.
Notice that you have 30 megs after the process fails and deletes what it
tried to install.
> I got the same message trying YaST, too. And rebooting was no help.
Of course not.
> Absent any other information, I guess I will expand /boot to something
> considerably larger (it’s currently 101 mb), but I am a little wary of
> messing with it. Other suggestions?
Uninstall plymouth. It is huge on /boot (the initrd file).
I removed an older kernel as suggested by caf4926, using the method described in message #2 of this thread, and it seems to have solved the problem. Thanks also to Carlos E R (who has helped me previously). I shall keep in mind the options of removing Plymouth and/or enlarging the partition if similar problems occur.
btw, I several times I have had updates fail with Apper but succeed with YaST, which is why I tried that first, and on one or two occasions I have had problems solved by rebooting, which is why I tried that.
I managed with 100M, through opensuse 13.1. And then I did some partition adjustments. I’m now using 500M for “/boot”.
For 13.1, I uninstalled Plymouth. That greatly reduced the space needs in “/boot”. I still had to delete old kernels.
After a kernel update, the system keeps the new kernel and the previous one. After I was sure that the new kernel was working fine, I would delete the old kernel. That freed up space for the next kernel.
To delete:
Yast Software Management.
Search for “kernel”.
Click on the “Versions” tab.
Using the Versions tab, uncheck the kernels that you don’t want. Repeat for related packages (kernel-devel, maybe kernel-syms, maybe kernel-source).
Go back and recheck to make sure that you are deleting the right ones.
Click “Accept”.
If you get a conflict, then you probably have some “kmp” packages that depend on earlier kernels. You might have to delete/update those first.
Running 13.2, I am currently showing 61.2M disk space being used on “/boot” (out of 496M). I’m surprised that you are running out of space with 200M. I hope you did not use “btrfs” for “/boot” (I use “ext2”).
On 2015-04-23 16:16, rentpayer wrote:
>
> I removed an older kernel as suggested by caf4926, using the method
> described in message #2 of ‘this thread’
> (https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/500318-boot-partition-full),
> and it seems to have solved the problem. Thanks also to Carlos E R (who
> has helped me previously). I shall keep in mind the options of removing
> Plymouth and/or enlarging the partition if similar problems occur.
They should.
> btw, I several times I have had updates fail with Apper but succeed with
> YaST, which is why I tried that first, and on one or two occasions I
> have had problems solved by rebooting, which is why I tried that.
Rebooting triggers the purge kernels script. If there are too many
kernels installed, it will make a difference.
WHy so large space? I’ve 296MB of EFI which is the original factory supplied size of EFI partition. (laptop came with windows preinstalled)
Since I’m multi-booting the EFI partition is shared by Windoze, openSUSE and Deepin and still I’ve 245 MB left.
Please note that the EFI partition you speak of is something completely different than a separate /boot partition.
A separate /boot partition contains everything you have in /boot except /boot/efi, including grub’s files, the kernels and initrds…
That said, I would find 1GiB (or even 500MiB) a bit excessive too. My /boot (not a separate partition though) has 60 MiB at the moment, that is on 13.2 with 2 kernels and plymouth.
But if you want to keep more than the default 2 or 3 kernels, you need a bigger one of course.
I’m not able to understand. The /boot partition you are talking about. Is that property of MBR based systems or common to both EFI and MBR based systems.
Or I could also have made separate boot partition as the same way as /home etc. And since I didn’t make it, it got into the root partition.
I have a separate “/boot” because I use an encrypted LVM. The “/boot” is unencrypted. The kernel is loaded from there, and then the crypto is setup to complete booting.
Generally, a separate “/boot” is needed to handle special problems, such as encrypted LVM, maybe RAID, maybe with older hardware such that the BIOS can only access the beginning of the hard drive.
On 2015-04-23 17:36, wolfi323 wrote:
> That said, I would find 1GiB (or even 500MiB) a bit excessive too. My
> /boot (not a separate partition though) has 60 MiB at the moment, that
> is on 13.2 with 2 kernels and plymouth.
This laptop, without plymouth, is currently using 85 MiB for /boot,
sized 190 MiB. With plymouth and three kernels (I get three during
updates; the third one is deleted afterwards) I can barely cope.
Disks are big nowdays. Why not play safe and assign 1 GB? When I
assigned 200 MB I thought it was a lot… 3 years later, it wasn’t.
As you can see, my /boot is using 60MiB, as I wrote with 2 kernels and plymouth installed/enabled.
A third one would nicely fit into 100MiB as well.
But 200MiB is definitely safer.
Disks are big nowdays. Why not play safe and assign 1 GB? When I
assigned 200 MB I thought it was a lot… 3 years later, it wasn’t.
Well, you can waste your diskspace however you like.
And I don’t want to argue about this. I just mentioned that in my opinion 1GiB is not necessary, and I’d even consider it a waste.
As I wrote, my boot is 60MiB. And I do not expect it to grow to 1 GiB anytime soon (or ever).
The kernel does not grow that fast/much and it is compressed anyway.
Personally I don’t see a point in having a separate /boot anyway. I don’t even like to have a separate /home…
But everybody can setup his/her system the way (s)he likes.
There are setups where you need it, but in most cases grub2 should be able to do without.
Each initrd file is 12 megs. With plymouth, they get up to 20 or 30. Each.
No.
That might have been the case with 13.1 (mine have been somewhere between 20 and 30 MiB too IIRC), but not here on 13.2.
With the switch to dracut in 13.2 they got smaller again.
>> Each initrd file is 12 megs. With plymouth, they get up to 20 or 30.
>> Each.
>>
> No.
> That might have been the case with 13.1 (mine have been somewhere
> between 20 and 30 MiB too IIRC), but not here on 13.2.
> With the switch to dracut in 13.2 they got smaller again.
Well, that explains it, as I’m using 13.1. See my signature
