Disk space requirements of mkinitramfs

Asked by Dave Ung

Installation attempts failed using Kubuntu 12.10-desktop-i386 , Ubuntu-12.04.1-desktop-i386, and Lubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386; all returned an "error status 1" at the post-installation step involving mkinitramfs, e.g.,

Jan 13 14:53:17 kubuntu ubiquity: Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
Jan 13 14:53:17 kubuntu ubiquity: update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity:
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity: gzip:
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity: stdout: No space left on device
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity: E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 gzip 1
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity: update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic with 1.
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity: dpkg: error processing initramfs-tools (--purge):
Jan 13 14:53:29 kubuntu ubiquity: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

Did the installation from CD, DVD and USB media - all failed at the above step.

The target root (/) partition is 16 GB, but, /boot was 102 MB (7 MB free). Does mkinitramfs need lots of disk space in the target /boot partition? Or something else is amiss?

Thanks in advance.

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#1

What is the output of:

lsb_release -a; uname -a; dpkg -l | grep linux-image

Thanks

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Dave Ung (dave-ung) said :
#2

kubuntu@kubuntu:~/Desktop$ lsb_release -a;uname -a;dpkg -l |grep linux-image
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.10
Release: 12.10
Codename: quantal
Linux kubuntu 3.5.0-17-generic #28-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 9 19:32:08 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux
ii linux-image-3.5.0-17-generic 3.5.0-17.28 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-image-extra-3.5.0-17-generic 3.5.0-17.28 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-image-generic 3.5.0.17.19 i386 Generic Linux kernel image

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#3

Quite a neat set of kernels. What is the output of :

df -h

Thanks

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Best N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said :
#4

Hi , there is no need to create a separate boot partition. If you follow the "something else" configuration , create a root partition and a swap partition. If you want you can create a separate /home partition also.

boot partition will be created inside root partition and you will have not any space problem.

Thanks

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Dave Ung (dave-ung) said :
#5

Thanks NikTh, that solved my question.

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Dave Ung (dave-ung) said :
#6

Thanks, NikTh & actionparsnip.

It's evident that the failed Ubuntu installs resulted from insufficient disk space on the /boot partition [which had less than 10 MB left]. It appears that Ubuntu initrd*.img's are much larger [more than 6X !?] than those from centOS and RedHat, e.g.:

 Sizes of initrd.img's for Ubuntu:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22597814 Jan 14 21:17 initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22609489 Jan 14 21:20 initrd.img-3.5.0-21-generic

Sizes of initrd*.img's from previous kernels [centOS and RedHat]:
-rw-rw-r--. 1 root root 5832704 Jan 13 21:04 initramfs-2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3408652 Nov 17 2010 initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5.centos.plus.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3408991 Nov 17 2010 initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5.centos.plusxen.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3402865 Nov 11 2010 initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3403477 Nov 12 2010 initrd-2.6.18-194.26.1.el5xen.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3408951 May 16 2011 initrd-2.6.18-238.9.1.el5.centos.plus.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3409106 May 16 2011 initrd-2.6.18-238.9.1.el5.centos.plusxen.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3417109 Sep 20 2011 initrd-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.centos.plus.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 3417647 Sep 20 2011 initrd-2.6.18-274.3.1.el5.centos.plusxen.img

A peek at the centOS 6.3 LiveDVD shows initrd*.img of 9.9 MB. I guess we'll just have to set aside more disk space...