Ubuntu
initramfs-tools package

  1. Bug #562312
  2. Comment #8

Comment 8 for bug 562312

Revision history for this message
Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote : Re: initramfs-tools failed to install/upgrade, due to all space on usb key reserved for persistent storage. No space left to write initrd or vmlinuz.

I think there are several things that need to be done to address this class of bugs:

1. Jockey needs to be more attentive to the lack of space on the root device. This will be the focus for bug #685017. It should detect the situation and give the user an error message dialog, without trying to do the installation.

2. usb-creator needs to not let the user reserve 100% of the space to documents, or should display an appropriate warning or UI to indicate that if they do not preserve some space for system files, the usb key will become non-functional. I recommend something like the following:

  * For 1G USB keys, do not offer persistent storage at all
  * For 2G to 4G USB keys, make sure there is 800M or so remaining after creating casper-rw - enough space to update to a new kernel, write initrd, and other system type things needed.
  * For >4G USB keys, put the casper-rw on its own partition separate from the system files. Ensure there's at least 1G of space for system files, to install kernels and so on.