boot partition too small

[papaworx]

Every time I update my installation, the OS complains that the boot partition is full. 244MB seems too small. On that 1TB drive I also have a 512 MB boot/efi that's practically empty and a huge working partition - one side of a Raid 1, and there's the problem. I don't dare to chop off 1 Gb of over 900 because I am afraid of messing up the Raid. I don't dual boot. The boot/efi is a left over from the original installation.
Questions:
1. Can I simply move over 256MB from boot/efi to boot whith parted or gparted?
2. If that is not possible, is there a way of dealing with the Raid problem?

[Spearmint2]

You'd need to post an image of the GParted for it. It may be possible to do, or may not, depending on how the partitions are setup.

[papaworx]

see attached

[Spearmint2]

OK, you can delete the /boot/efi partition. You should then be able to Resize/Move the /boot partition over that space, but it might result in not booting and need to reinstall grub from a LIVE DVD or USB. Backup your boot folder, just in case.

[papaworx]

Thanks Spearmint2, will do

[WharfRat]

papaworx,

Before you do anything can you paste back ls -lh /boot/vm*

[papaworx]

Yes sir!
-rw------- 1 root root 6.8M Oct 10 12:19 /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-98-generic

[WharfRat]

Yes sir!
-rw------- 1 root root 6.8M Oct 10 12:19 /boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-98-generic

can you list the entire content with ls -lh /boot

[papaworx]

sorry forgot to send.
total 52M
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 1.0K Nov 17 06:18 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4.0K Oct 31 06:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2M Oct 10 12:19 abi-4.4.0-98-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 187K Oct 10 12:19 config-4.4.0-98-generic
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Dec 31 1969 efi
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1.0K Oct 31 06:14 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 39M Oct 31 06:13 initrd.img-4.4.0-98-generic
drwx------ 2 root root 12K Feb 20 2017 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 179K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+.elf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 181K Jan 28 2016 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
-rw------- 1 root root 3.8M Oct 10 12:19 System.map-4.4.0-98-generic
drwx------ 4 root root 1.0K Oct 31 10:40 .Trash-0
-rw------- 1 root root 6.8M Oct 10 12:19 vmlinuz-4.4.0-98-generic

[WharfRat]

The reason I'm asking is my /boot folder only uses 121M.

You shouldn't have a .Trash-0 folder in /boot.

Check if it's populated with sudo du -hd1 /boot

You can remove it if it's eating up you partition's space.

[mr_raider]

OK, you can delete the /boot/efi partition. You should then be able to Resize/Move the /boot partition over that space, but it might result in not booting and need to reinstall grub from a LIVE DVD or USB. Backup your boot folder, just in case.

No.

If this is an EFI install, the EFI partition is required

The best option for now is to clear up space in the boot partition. Eventually you need to reinstall since the left side of an LVM is hard to move

[papaworx]

Thanks Spearmint2, you clinched it. I hadn't looked for hidden files and directories. Deleting .Trash-0 gave me 170 MB back and the update work flawlessly. What I don't understand is why the OS decided to keep the trash file in the boot partition, given the fact that real estate is dear. How can I tell the system to place the .Trash directory in a more rational place, if I need a trash directory for my boot partition at all?

[WharfRat]

Thanks Spearmint2, you clinched it. I hadn't looked for hidden files and directories. Deleting .Trash-0 gave me 170 MB back and the update work flawlessly. What I don't understand is why the OS decided to keep the trash file in the boot partition, given the fact that real estate is dear. How can I tell the system to place the .Trash directory in a more rational place, if I need a trash directory for my boot partition at all?

You normally shouldn't have a trash folder in boot. It's supposed to reside in your /home/$USER folder and I have no explanation for it being in /boot.

My first thought was that you weren't purging old kernels after upgrades which a lot of users overlook especially, it seems, with an LVM installation as the /boot partition is limited in size.

However your folder was not over populated with kernels, so that's why I asked for the full listing and noticed the .Trash-0 folder.

[Spearmint2]

What I don't understand is why the OS decided to keep the trash file in the boot partition, given the fact that real estate is dear. How can I tell the system to place the .Trash directory in a more rational place,

Damned if I know. Never seen that one before. Sure it's not a left over from some earlier install into that partition, which was later shrunk and made a boot partition? Why not delete some dummy files now and see if the Trash folder reappears there before doing anything more drastic.

[Joe2Shoe]

This is one of my laptops with LM18.2 Cinnamon Sonya 64-bit installed. HDD is 320GB. It has 4GB RAM, Swap is 6GB.
/ root is 41GB
/ boot is 2GB
/ home is 30GB
/ Data is 214GB

https://www.dropbox.com/s/40rh1h34dxd11 ... c.png?dl=0

This is just for reference.

[mr_raider]

Separate /boot partitions are only required for very specific circumstances. Unfortunately the installer creates one when left to its own devices and makes it woefully small.

Simply put, inexperienced users should not be messing around with LVM installs, yet for reason the installer allows it.

[Tomgin5]

This fixed all of my boot partition issues.
Code: Select all
sudo apt-get install byobu

Followed by:

Code: Select all
sudo purge-old-kernels

It takes care of the dangling kernels from upgrading to LM 18.2 with the bloated trash in the boot sector.

[papaworx]

I am grateful to all of you who have contributed so quickly to solve my problem. My Linux Mint installation is two years old and has gone through several Mint versions. I did try to get rid of old boot images, but I did it via delete instead of purge. So the system probably set up a hidden local trash can.
Although I have been a heavy computer user and contributor for 60 years, at age 80 I find that the many historic operating system idiosyncrasies starting to blur in my mind. Next time my boot partition fills up, I will likely have forgotten the .Trash-0 directory. So I maintain a CherryTree hierarchical database with all the little tricks that I should have learned on mLinux. Hopefully, I will at least remember to look for a solution in the CherryTree. Thanks again!