Write error : cannot write block : No space left on device
Seems like your boot partition is full.
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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For some reason the Debian installer likes to make a tiny /boot so you can only fit 2-3 kernels at most. Try removing some old ones first.
would you help the noob here and explain how to do that?
Something like dpkg -l '*linux-image*' and then see which are installed (ii), and then do a dpkg remove <package name from above> on some, but don't remove the one you are running now, check uname -a to see.
Keep in mind this is all from memory, so might be wrong
Edit: now I see others replied as well with better ways
apt autoremove should do it
List all installed kernels:
dpkg -l | grep linux-image | awk '{print$2}'
Remove certain kernels:
sudo apt remove --purge linux-image-XXX
where XXX is the kernel version you wish to remove, as printed above. Repeat as needed until all unwanted kernels have been removed.
Then update grub:
sudo update-grub2
And reboot:
sudo reboot
thanks. I did all that. Is it safe to reboot? don't want to ruin the machine
I would run a final update-initramfs -u -k all before a reboot
just to avoid misunderstandings, I assume the final >french accent lemmy wont show< in your code is lemmy code and you forgot to type the >french accent lemmy wont show< at the beginning of the command, right? because the one without the >french accent lemmy wont show< returns -bash: update-initramfs: command not found
incidentally, another member suggested I run sudo dpkg-reconfigure initramfs-tools
it returns:
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.148.3) ... update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-6.12.41+deb13-amd64 zstd: error 70 : Write error : cannot write block : No space left on device E: mkinitramfs failure cpio 141 E: mkinitramfs failure zstd -q -9 -T0 70 update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-6.12.41+deb13-amd64 with 1. dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure): installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: initramfs-tools
but this is something I don't understand. I deleted 6 old kernels already. There are only 3 left.
After checking KDE Partition Manager for /boot and /boot/efi both have free space left:
/boot size: 488 MiB
/boot used: 396.26 MiB
/boot/efi size: 512 MiB
/boot/efi used: 10.52 MiB
I've created a small helper script to help me with this:
#!/bin/bash
USED_VER=$(uname -r)
echo "Kernel version in use: $USED_VER"
echo "Other installed versions:"
dpkg --list 'linux-image*' | grep ^ii | grep -v $USED_VER
echo "Remove unneeded packages above using the following command:"
echo "sudo apt remove linux-image-VERSION"
It prints a list of the installed kernels (excl. the running one) and prints the command to uninstall the packages (it doesn't remove anything by itself).
Note. Before rebooting, regenerate initramfs for all kernel versions. I am not in debian, but dpkg-reconfigure initramfs-tools might do it.