"a more helpful error" that the title of this bug report calls for would not free you from the need to remove kernels manually.
I made a script called linux-purge to make it easy to remove extra kernels even in tricky conditions: https://www.bountysource.com/issues/38300038-feature-request-the- command-should-work-like-this (It is designed to handle dependency problems and even problem running out of inodes - that may occur when installing a kernel - when using --fix option.) As for preventing system from getting full of kernels automatically, unattended-upgrades provides an adequate solution for most cases. You can configure it in Ubuntu 16.04 like this: Add line Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true"; in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades (since unattended-upgrades is enabled by default in 16.04; the configuration acts as if running "apt-get autoremove" periodically.) The default setting in 16.04 is Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-New-Unused-Dependencies "true"; but that does not work in some cases (Bug #1624644); the former setting overrides it. Alternatively, putting "linux-purge --yes --keep 1" as a cron job or alike could do automatic kernel purging, (if no other process has locked dpkg at the time of calling it). It has some differences to the unattended-upgrades way: - It works in 12.04 and 14.04, too. (unattended-upgrades cannot remove manually installed kernels that will be around, if user installs kernel using e.g. update-manager; Bug #1439769.) - The number of kernels to keep is configurable. It keeps the given number of nearest older kernels of each installed kernel update series, e.g. linux-generic and linux-generic-lts-xenial, not necessarily the installed kernels with greatest versions. (You could use --auto-only to keep manually installed kernels, too, but you probably would not want to use it in 12.04 and 14.04.) - Current kernel will never be removed. (Bug #1615381) - It removes configuration files, too. (i.e. it purges) - It only removes versioned kernel packages whose name start by linux-. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/798414 Title: update-initramfs should produce a more helpful error when there isn't enough free space To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/initramfs-tools/+bug/798414/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
