Comment 13 for bug 95260

I've got this problem with Xubuntu 12.10.

It is a fault with the Ubuntu Software Updater.

It is also a fault with the installer.

My machine was a clean install six months ago. I did a guided, encrypted LVM. I used a boot partition of the recommended size. Now six months later Xubuntu's telling me on the hand I need to upgrade my kernel, and on the other that I can't upgrade my kernel because there is not enough space in my boot partition.

There are two problems here:

i) the standard setting wasn't big enough to see my machine even through its first upgrade

ii) my /boot partition is being over-filled with trash that is nothing to do with me as a user. I shouldn't have to know about this. This problem should not effect me.

Notably, this was the first time I opted to have a separate partition for my home directory. All over Ubuntu installs since 2008, on a variety of machines, have been on a single partition. The problem never occurred before in any of these instances.

It would be most helpful if the following solutions were given serious consideration:

i) The ubuntu/xubuntu installer needs to create a boot partition of the appropriate size. It should inform a user who tries to create a /boot partition that is too small.

ii) The Software Center should clean up its trash. It is most unhygenic of it to simply discard unused kernel images in the /boot directory. If it is the case that expert users like to keep old kernels hanging around, then the default should favour non-expert users by having them removed automatically. Perhaps the option could be flagged on the instance of a kernel upgrade.

Here's my situation:

~$ sudo df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/xubuntu-root 143G 62G 75G 45% /
udev 1.7G 4.0K 1.7G 1% /dev
tmpfs 702M 820K 701M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 1.8G 80K 1.8G 1% /run/shm
none 100M 20K 100M 1% /run/user
/dev/sda1 228M 193M 24M 90% /boot

Current kernel: Linux 3.5.0-27-generic UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

~$ ls -l /boot
total 192736
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 848290 Jan 8 22:09 abi-3.5.0-22-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 848290 Jan 24 13:38 abi-3.5.0-23-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 849836 Feb 7 02:13 abi-3.5.0-24-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 849836 Feb 25 18:49 abi-3.5.0-25-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 850088 Mar 8 23:41 abi-3.5.0-26-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 852365 Mar 25 20:20 abi-3.5.0-27-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147871 Jan 8 22:09 config-3.5.0-22-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147871 Jan 24 13:38 config-3.5.0-23-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147944 Feb 7 02:13 config-3.5.0-24-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147944 Feb 25 18:49 config-3.5.0-25-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147944 Mar 8 23:41 config-3.5.0-26-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 148096 Mar 25 20:20 config-3.5.0-27-generic
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1024 Apr 30 21:25 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23633726 Jan 19 08:33 initrd.img-3.5.0-22-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23635169 Feb 1 12:16 initrd.img-3.5.0-23-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23650307 Feb 23 12:04 initrd.img-3.5.0-24-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23650893 Feb 27 18:52 initrd.img-3.5.0-25-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23674572 Mar 29 09:52 initrd.img-3.5.0-26-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23713174 Apr 30 21:25 initrd.img-3.5.0-27-generic
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Nov 28 15:19 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 176764 Jan 3 22:48 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 178944 Jan 3 22:48 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
-rw------- 1 root root 2904407 Jan 8 22:09 System.map-3.5.0-22-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2904246 Jan 24 13:38 System.map-3.5.0-23-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2905147 Feb 7 02:13 System.map-3.5.0-24-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2905168 Feb 25 18:49 System.map-3.5.0-25-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2899290 Mar 8 23:41 System.map-3.5.0-26-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2900893 Mar 25 20:20 System.map-3.5.0-27-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 5134960 Jan 8 22:09 vmlinuz-3.5.0-22-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 5134032 Jan 24 13:38 vmlinuz-3.5.0-23-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 5138608 Feb 7 02:13 vmlinuz-3.5.0-24-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 5138448 Feb 25 18:49 vmlinuz-3.5.0-25-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 5124624 Mar 8 23:41 vmlinuz-3.5.0-26-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 5127408 Mar 25 20:20 vmlinuz-3.5.0-27-generic

~$dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d'
linux-headers-3.5.0-17
linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-18
linux-headers-3.5.0-18-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-19
linux-headers-3.5.0-19-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-21
linux-headers-3.5.0-21-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-22
linux-headers-3.5.0-22-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-23
linux-headers-3.5.0-23-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-24
linux-headers-3.5.0-24-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-25
linux-headers-3.5.0-25-generic
linux-headers-3.5.0-26
linux-headers-3.5.0-26-generic
linux-image-3.5.0-22-generic
linux-image-3.5.0-23-generic
linux-image-3.5.0-24-generic
linux-image-3.5.0-25-generic
linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic
linux-image-extra-3.5.0-22-generic
linux-image-extra-3.5.0-23-generic
linux-image-extra-3.5.0-24-generic
linux-image-extra-3.5.0-25-generic
linux-image-extra-3.5.0-26-generic