Source: partman-auto Version: 144 Severity: wishlist X-Debbugs-Cc: vor...@debian.org
Hello, I get lots of user feedback from Ubuntu users that /boot is "too small" and quickly becomes full. That's been the case for at least 3 years. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unattended-upgrades/+bug/1357093 There are a few aspects to this: 1. if a user chooses full-disk encryption, the size of /boot is not adjustable; only by manually creating that, dm-crypt and LVM instead, but that's not easy. 2. it's really painful to enlarge /boot once a dm-crypt partition is created alongside it and filled with user data. 3. users of Software Center / Synaptic install kernel upgrades, but usually aren't that aware that old, unneeded kernels remain installed; the GUIs have no autoremove function, and autoremove can sometimes remove things a novice user didn't intend. Some aspects are Ubuntu-specific: 4. they bump the ABI number in every kernel update, IIRC something related to the signing machinery for Secure Boot. (vorlon@ in Cc can maybe explain?) 5. they store both signed and unsigned kernel images in /boot, so each installed kernel ABI version requires more disk space. Thinking ahead, the latter two points might also apply to Debian someday. The kernel itself and initrds may also become bigger over the next years. If that happens, and users have an installed system with full-disk encryption, they may be unable to increase the size of /boot, and so be obstructed from upgrading to the next Debian (or Ubuntu) release, or the one after. That the actual, root causes persist in Ubuntu after 3 years, despite a huge install base, good user support channels and paid developers, is slightly sad, but makes me think it merits working around (or preemptive action in the case of Debian), even at the expense of 256MB disk space. So in recipes-amd64-efi, is it feasible we double the max. size of /boot from 256MB to 512MB? "640K ought to be enough for everyone." Thanks for consideration, Regards, -- Steven Chamberlain
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
