On 9/24/2025 9:19 PM, Tim wrote:
On Wed, 2025-09-24 at 12:49 -0600, home user via users wrote:
Wanting to keep 5 old "kernels", and wanting /boot to accommodate 10
years of growth, /boot should be allotted
(1 + (growth rate as a percent / 100) ^ years) * starting size
= (1.2 ^ 10) * 800 MB
= about 5 GB.
I'll hazard a guess that your drive, and motherboard, mightn't have a
10 year lifespan. And even if fault-free, mightn't be useful in 10
years, either.
old system:
first hard drive - 4 years; replacement - still going.
monitors (dual-monitor desktop) - one lasted 5(?) years, the other still
going.
everything else - original components still going.
So you're right about the drive.
After 12 years, still not aware of anything I can't do other than 2K and
higher video, and better-than-24-bit color.
If you do go down the route of having all your data on a separate
drive, you don't have to update over the top of an existing install.
You're free to *easily* wipe the system drive and install the next OS
release as a fresh install, partitioning it as required for that
release.
On the old desktop, the last semi-annual upgrade was about 5
T-H-O-U-S-A-N-D packages.
I believe that the fresh install is quick and easy. But then there's
all that other stuff.
I would guess that 1 gig is still enough for systems for the next few
years if you don't use nVidia, maybe double that size if you do. And
you have a whopping huge drive, so you don't really need to worry about
it.
I'll try to re-work the numbers for the no-nvidia case.
With the numbers I have now, another interesting number: it takes 4
years (rounded) for the space use to double.
Although the kernels (and ancillary files) size has increased over the
years, there's been a recent push (and pushback) about not just
continually adding drivers, but removing ancient ones that no-one's
likely to be still using.
Overall, seems like a good idea. But the SW engineers must be careful.
I'm not the only one keeping things many years. I anticipate inflation
will push more people into keeping things longer.
This is one aspect of Linux that gets a lot of stick: Huge monolithic
kernels, where they shove *everything* in the kernel, rather than
having the kernel just for the OS, and let all the drivers be separate
(microkernels). There's issues of filesize, memory size, stability,
debugging, and security, with huge kernels. And though the actual
kernel isn't all that big, the other associated files can be
(initramfs, especially).
Trade-off no matter what they do. Makes me glad I'm not part of the
Linux development/maintenance teams.
Not for planning the install, but for my education and understanding:
In the context of your last sentence, what file(s) are you considering
to be the "kernel", and where (path) are they, given that you consider
initramfs* to not be a part of the "kernel"?
--
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