[Bug 798414] Re: update-initramfs should produce a more helpful error when there isn't enough free space

[Pxtl]

I have a text file in my home directory with the following snippet I
found on an Ubuntu forum that i'm copying and pasting every time my boot
dir runs out of memory:

dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed
"s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^
]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d' | xargs sudo apt-get -y purge

I have no idea what the above command does - I see some horrifying
regexes and a double-nested sed call and some weird parameters and apt-
get....  That's what this bug has reduced me to - copy-paste random
commands into terminal.  It seems to happen with the normal recommended
boot partition - how are other users not hitting this all the time?
Shouldn't every single user with recommended partitioning eventually run
out of space and hit this total failure?  Because I'm wondering about
Grandma-machines where somebody just gets used to ignoring the fact that
they can't update.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/798414

Title:
  update-initramfs should produce a more helpful error when there isn't
  enough  free space

Status in initramfs-tools:
  Confirmed
Status in initramfs-tools package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: initramfs-tools

  When generating a new initramfs there is no check for available free
  space, subsequently its possible for update-initramfs to fail due to a
  lack of free space.  This is resulting in package installation
  failures for initramfs-tools.  For example:

  Setting up initramfs-tools (0.98.8ubuntu3) ...
  update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
  Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
  update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic

  gzip: stdout: No space left on device
  E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 gzip 1
  update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic
  dpkg: error processing initramfs-tools (--configure):
   subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

  WORKAROUND:

  Remove unused kernels using computer janitor (not in repositories for
  14.04 or later) or manually free space on your partition containing
  the /boot file system.

  See instructions here
  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/Documentation/RemoveOldKernels

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