[Bug 1183692] Re: Not enough disk space for kernel security update on /boot

[Matt Hanyok]

This affects the upgrade tool as well - if the user gets the prompt to
do the update to 16.04 and clicks "upgrade", it downloads the update
tool, starts to check and see if it can do the upgrade, and then fails
with the same "not enough disk space" error.

It also doesn't offer an easy way to correct the issue and the continue
running the upgrade, so the user is left with an error box that can only
be closed and no easy way to re-start the update after fixing the
problem (assuming they can figure out how to fix the problem).

The last few times I've seen this issue, it seems that apt-get
autoremove actually correctly identifies the old installed kernel files
and removes them properly (it was inconsistent before as to whether
autoremove would work) - perhaps simply offering the user an option to
'clean up old system files' and then run autoremove would be sufficient?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1183692

Title:
  Not enough disk space for kernel security update on /boot

Status in update-manager package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Hi all

  I am using Ubuntu 12.10 and have just received the newest update
  notification from the update-manager marked as security updates. (This
  is NOT a release upgrade, but the regular security update)

  The update-manager tells me now that there is insufficient space on /boot to install these updates.
  The problem obviously is that too many kernels are installed: 3.5.0-17, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 30

  Which leaves 27MB space:
  Filesystem               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
  /dev/sda1                228M  190M   27M  88% /boot

  Update Manager reports that it needs at least 33.2MB space for this
  update:

  "The upgrade needs a total of 33.2 M free space on disk '/boot'.
  Please free at least an additional 5,520 k of disk space on '/boot'.
  Empty your trash and remove temporary packages of former installations
  using 'sudo apt-get clean'."

  The hint in the message does not help for /boot.
  While I can fix this myself, I believe that this is not acceptable for an average end user to research and fix.
  Update-Manager should at least offer the option to remove old kernels (which it installed itself by security updates) in order for the security updates to proceed.

  
  I found an answer on AskUbuntu.com (http://askubuntu.com/questions/142926/cant-upgrade-due-to-low-disk-space-on-boot) which will help fix the issue. 

  TL;DR:

  -- 1 -- Release: 12.10
  -- 2 -- Installed Version of update-manager: 1:0.174.4
  -- 3 -- Expected:
  Security update should be installed. 
  -- 4 -- Happened:
  Failed because of insufficient disk space on /boot
  (Too many old kernels previously installed and not removed by update-manager)

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