GRUB doesn't see the newest kernel (kernels are unexpectedly being installed as UKIs)

Ask Fedora
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1

I installed Fedora 44 right after the update, but I thought that kernel 7.0 must have been tested by the Fedora team, so I didn’t pay much attention to it; I have run the older 6.19.12-200 fc43. But yesterday I saw that I was installing 7.0.8 from the sudo dnf update --refresh. But there is no other version than 6.19.12 and below to 6.16.1. Can anybody help me?

2

sudo dnf install kernel-6.19.10-300.fc44

sudo dnf install kernel-7.0.4-200.fc44

3

image
image1847×1084 338 KB

Now I got the warning about high partition space usage

4

lsblk
will show you your disk usage

5 
❯ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    0   3,6T  0 disk
└─sda1        8:1    0   3,6T  0 part /run/media/dean/00E7-8685
zram0       251:0    0     8G  0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1     259:0    0 931,5G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   600M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0     2G  0 part /boot
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 928,9G  0 part /home
                                      /
~
❯

I dont have much, but boot partiton is full

6

You can delete kernels you dont need from there, say if you have 7.0.8 but it does not work, you can delete it

But 2GB in boot is a lot, surprising it is full, what are the contents of that folder?

re the 7.0.4 kernel not being available, I did check it twice, so I dont know why it says that on your screenshot

7

but I want the newest; I just want to use it; I can remove some older kernels

8

Sometimes kernels dont work with hardware, and we have to wait a week for a new one that does work. I would recommend trying to get 7.0.4 working if 7.0.8 does not.

9

Yeah, surprising indeed for a 2GB boot partition to be full.

It would be interesting to see the output of sudo ls -Al /boot

10 
[sudo] password for dean:
total 473116
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    297817 04-12 02:00 config-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64
drwx------. 6 root root      4096 1970-01-01  efi
drwx------. 3 root root      4096 04-17 04:03 EFI
drwx------. 3 root root      4096 05-17 13:38 grub2
-rw-------. 1 root root 270890528 04-16 00:52 initramfs-0-rescue-b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 165402986 05-17 13:53 initramfs-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64.img
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root      4096 04-17 04:37 loader
drwx------. 2 root root     16384 04-16 00:49 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root        47 04-16 23:26 symvers-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64.xz -> /lib/modules/6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64/symvers.xz
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    192212 05-16 14:58 symvers-7.0.8-200.fc44.x86_64.xz
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  11605060 04-12 02:00 System.map-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  17807720 04-16 00:51 vmlinuz-0-rescue-b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  18225512 04-12 02:00 vmlinuz-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root       162 04-12 02:00 .vmlinuz-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64.hmac
~ took 2.6s
❯

I have removed some old kernels, like 6.18.11

11

It’s surprising to see both of these. Normally the lower-case one only should be there, and it should be a mountpoint for the separate EFI partition.

Maybe try sudo du -hd2 /boot to get a view of how much space is used by the subdirectories here.

12 
❯ sudo du -hd2 /boot
[sudo] password for dean:
12K     /boot/loader/entries
20K     /boot/loader
2,3M    /boot/grub2/fonts
2,4M    /boot/grub2
21M     /boot/efi/EFI
16K     /boot/efi/System
24K     /boot/efi/loader
166M    /boot/efi/fedora
186M    /boot/efi
1,2G    /boot/EFI/Linux
1,2G    /boot/EFI
16K     /boot/lost+found
1,9G    /boot
~ took 2.5s
❯
13

My boot is a lot smaller

2.3M /boot/grub2/fonts
2.4M /boot/grub2
20K /boot/loader/entries
24K /boot/loader
7.9M /boot/efi/EFI
7.9M /boot/efi
16K /boot/lost+found
524M /boot

14

So there’s the smoking gun - that shouldn’t be there on a normal install, unless you’ve very consciously taken steps to move away from Fedora’s standard style of booting.

sudo ls -Al /boot/EFI/Linux to see what’s in there? There are some older threads with details on what can cause this, I’ll try to dig them up.

15 
total 1233612
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 173601792 04-17 04:13 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-6.19.12-200.fc43.x86_64.efi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 176471552 04-25 08:48 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-6.19.13-200.fc43.x86_64.efi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 176488448 04-28 16:56 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-6.19.14-200.fc43.x86_64.efi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 183676928 04-28 17:23 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-6.19.14-300.fc44.x86_64.efi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 184150528 05-11 16:55 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-7.0.4-200.fc44.x86_64.efi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 184273920 05-14 23:42 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-7.0.6-200.fc44.x86_64.efi
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 184536064 05-16 21:18 b18f130e8cb746808f5e7562cfe47c24-7.0.8-200.fc44.x86_64.efi
16

Here’s a thread where someone had similar issues.

Can you show the output of rpm -q kernel-uki-virt ?

17

not installed

18

Thanks, so it’s not the identical cause then.

What about sudo tree /boot/efi/EFI

19 
├── BOOT
│   ├── BOOTIA32.EFI
│   ├── BOOTX64.EFI
│   ├── fbia32.efi
│   └── fbx64.efi
├── fedora
│   ├── BOOTIA32.CSV
│   ├── BOOTX64.CSV
│   ├── gcdia32.efi
│   ├── gcdx64.efi
│   ├── grub.cfg
│   ├── grubia32.efi
│   ├── grubx64.efi
│   ├── mmia32.efi
│   ├── mmx64.efi
│   ├── shim.efi
│   ├── shimia32.efi
│   └── shimx64.efi
└── systemd
    └── systemd-bootx64.efi

4 directories, 17 files
20

The existence of that systemd directory may be confusing Fedora into thinking it should be installing kernels in a different way from normal.

I assume you are not intentionally using systemd-boot, which is an alternative to GRUB. When you boot, do you see the normal GRUB menu?

Do you have another Linux distro on this disk?