I'm new to Linux and loving my experience with Fedora. However, after rolling out the default installation, I've hit a snag. It's only been a week and I'm unable to install new kernel updates because my /boot partition (which is 1GB by default) is full. Even after removing all but the live kernel, I'm still getting space errors. I've tried to resize the partition using a USB stick, but it ended up breaking my system due to how the partitions are arranged. Am I missing something, or is the default allocation of the 1GB boot partition ridiculously low? By the way, I found that the issue was actually my usage of the Timeshift backup app which was saving snapshots to the boot partition, causing it to fill up. But I still would like to hear others' experiences.
5 Answers
Typically, 1GiB should suffice for the /boot filesystem. What’s eating up all that space for you? My boot runs at just under 243MiB, and I've managed fine so far! Though I'm planning to expand to around 1GiB. Everything in there is so crucial!
Honestly, a 1GB boot partition should easily hold about five kernels, especially since it was recently upped from 500MB. If you’re seeing it read-only, that might indicate a problem detected during boot. Just a thought!
Weird, right? A single kernel shouldn't take that much. If Timeshift is keeping three backups, it could definitely bloat it. Seems like the source of your issue!
1GB should be more than enough! Windows only uses 100MB for its EFI partition. You might have some old, unused kernels clogging your boot. Check out this link for more tips on freeing up space: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/boot-nearly-full-how-to-free-space/73206/5
I cleared out all of the kernels except for the live one, but it seems like the live one is unusually large. Timeshift might be the culprit for bloating!
It’s usually perfectly normal, but if you're wanting to juggle more kernels, increasing its size would be smart. It seems like you'll need to make room in there somehow!
I faced this exact issue with Mint! The Timeshift feature was defaulting to the boot drive for its backups, filling up that 1GB FAST. I recommend checking what’s actually in your boot drive using something like KDE's Filelight. If your distro has something like Timeshift, it might be worth changing where it saves backups. I had to shift mine to the main partition and clean up the boot partition too. And don't forget to enable hidden files in your file manager if you need to!
I'm using Timeshift too, and I have three different rsync backups myself. That explains why I'm struggling to fit more than one kernel on the boot partition!
I think I figured it out! Timeshift was saving snapshots of my kernel to that /boot partition, absolutely bloating it. I'm doing a fresh install and definitely switching Timeshift to save on my main partition from now on.