Comment 29 for bug 132311

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Kevin Smith (ubuntu-qualitycode) wrote : Re: update-manager should remove more old kernels

As the OP of Bug 120489 I heartily agree (as I said there) that this is *NOT* a duplicate of that.

As I said over there, and as has been said here, the problem could occur even if there is absolutely nothing in /boot other than one working kernel and a minimum of other essential files.

I like what Barry said in comment #26, except that I see an even simpler possible resolution. As he says, the installer must be able to detect a lack of space. At that point, identifying cruft and/or launching a janitor would be a nice touch. I would simply settle at this point for an error saying "/boot is full. Installation is being aborted. Please retry after freeing up space on /boot". User friendly? No. Friendlier than the current behavior? Yes, by 10000%. And hopefully could be coded, tested, and distributed quickly, with minimal dependencies and minimal design discussions.