Help, my boot partition is full! - TUXEDO Computers

With an encrypted installation of TUXEDO OS, the size of the non-encrypted boot partition is around 1 GByte. This limits the number of kernels that can be installed simultaneously to 3 - 4. This restriction does not exist with unencrypted systems, because there the size of the boot directory is not limited, because /boot is part of the file system. For new installations, the /boot directory will soon be created with 2 GB instead of the previous 1 GB for encrypted installations. 

A task for Tomte

Starting with Tomte v 2.16.2, housekeeping of /boot in TUXEDO OS is controlled via the Kernel Auto Delete function, although you can, of course, decide whether Tomte should take over this task. If you do, older TUXEDO kernels will be deleted as soon as there is less than 250MB of free space in /boot.

If you do not wish to leave this task to Tomte, we offer you a workaround as an alternative to manually deleting the kernels in /boot. All you have to do is install the package kernel-remover on TUXEDO OS with the command sudo apt install kernel-remover and then run it.

Now select which kernels you want to remove and confirm this. This is followed by another prompt asking whether you want to start the process.

If you confirm this, the script will begin its work, which you can follow in the console. If you have marked more than one kernel for removal, the confirmation prompt returns for each kernel individually.

Until Tomte takes over this task, you should keep an eye on the fill level of the boot partition, especially on encrypted installations, and if necessary use kernel-remover to free space, as your computer may no longer boot if the boot partition is full. To see how much space is free on /boot, use the command df -h /boot.

If your computer no longer starts due to a full boot partition, you must start it via a live medium with TUXEDO OS and use the chroot helper, as described in this article. There you then delete the oldest kernel to give the system enough space to start up normally again.

The oldest kernel

To identify the oldest kernel, it helps to list the installed kernels in the chroot with the command dpkg -l | grep x-image. In the output, copy the name of the kernel with the oldest version number, for example linux-image-6.1.0-1009-tuxedo and remove it with the command sudo apt purge linux-image-6.1.0-1009-tuxedo. Afterwards, your system should start again and you can remove the other kernels that are no longer needed with kernel-remover.

Autorepair

If you have installed TUXEDO OS or Ubuntu via the WebFAI or are still using the original operating system that was installed when delivered on your notebook, then you can use the Autorepair function via the WebFAI USB stick to fix the problem. As the type of repair, you need to chose the option kernel. That will remove all kernels and then install the latest Tuxedo kernel.

As soon as Tomte can take over this task, you can find out from us in the News or by subscribing to our fortnightly Newsletter.