On 2024-07-18 at 10:32, Celejar wrote: > Hello, > > I'm currently on kernel 6.9.8 (amd64 / Sid). Installing 6.9.9 fails due to > running out of space on /boot: > > ***** > update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.9.9-amd64 > zstd: error 70 : Write error : cannot write block : No space left on device > E: mkinitramfs failure zstd -q -9 -T0 70 > update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-6.9.9-amd64 with 1. > ***** > > It turns out that the initrd for 6.9.9 is more than 7x the size of the > one for 6.9.8! > > ***** > ~$ ls -l /boot/initrd.img* > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 27491557 Jul 8 13:45 /boot/initrd.img-6.9.8-amd64 > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 205739589 Jul 16 14:29 /boot/initrd.img-6.9.9-amd64 > ***** > > Diffing the two initrd files suggests that the problem stems from the > fact that 6.9.9 is including the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) > firmware in the initrd: > > https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/510.39.01/README/gsp.html > > Arch dealt with this 6 months ago - they claim that the problem > actually began in kernel 6.7: > > https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=291900
From relatively deep in this thread, the issue appears to be that the GSP firmware references the same files multiple times via directory symlinks, and mkinitcpio was not detecting that, but rather was creating an actual new directory and populating it with additional copies of the files for each such symlink. The (a?) proposed solution appears to have been to update mkinitcpio so that it *does* detect this: "if the parent directory of the current file to be added is a symlink, create that symlink instead of adding the file", or logic to that effect. I haven't followed far enough to see whether that was actually done, but it seems(?) to have gotten far enough for a patch doing it to have been proposed. I imagine that the solution for the Debian side may wind up being analogous, albeit probably for mkinitramfs (or some tool it relies on), since I don't see a mkinitcpio in at least the parts of the archive I can quickly search against. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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