Much bigger initramfs image

Ask Fedora
1

I had my kernel install limit set to 6. Now it is 5

# cat /etc/dnf/dnf.conf 

# see `man dnf.conf` for defaults and possible options

[main]
max_parallel_downloads=6
installonly_limit=5
fastestmirror=False

I had to lower it because I got out of space in the 1GB /boot partition when I installed the new 6.16.3 kernel.

# df -h /boot | grep /boot
/dev/nvme0n1p2  974M  814M   94M  90% /boot

The reason I did run out of space is that the new 6.16.3 initramfs image is much bigger

# ll -h /boot/initramfs-6.1*.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  95M Aug 21 04:36 /boot/initramfs-6.15.10-200.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  69M Jul 23 05:15 /boot/initramfs-6.15.7-200.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  69M Jul 30 05:25 /boot/initramfs-6.15.8-200.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  95M Aug  6 09:08 /boot/initramfs-6.15.9-201.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 158M Aug 29 06:00 /boot/initramfs-6.16.3-200.fc42.x86_64.img

Is it expected for it to be bigger or is it just a glitch?

2

it’s expected for systems with a NVIDIA GPU.

# lsinitrd  |grep -E '^-.*gsp-5' 
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     25639648 Jul 24 02:00 usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ga102/gsp/gsp-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     51324396 Jul 24 02:00 usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ga102/gsp/gsp-570.144.bin.xz
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     12589816 Jul 24 02:00 usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/tu102/gsp/gsp-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     13371848 Jul 24 02:00 usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/tu102/gsp/gsp-570.144.bin.xz

# lsinitrd  /boot/initramfs-6.15.10-200.fc42.x86_64.img |grep -E '^-.*gsp-5' 
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     25639648 Jul 24 02:00 usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/ga102/gsp/gsp-535.113.01.bin.xz
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root     12589816 Jul 24 02:00 usr/lib/firmware/nvidia/tu102/gsp/gsp-535.113.01.bin.xz
1 Like
3

Noticed on another thread that a user had initramfs well over 200 MiB for 6.15.9 and 6.15.10:

I know NVIDIA drivers make the initramfs bigger, but on my system they’re only just over 100 MiB. I wonder if something is going on here.

4

Which also explains why my boot partition is running out of space and the kernel failing to install until I manually removed the older kernel.

1 Like
5

I don’t know that is a suitable explanation for the larger image size.
My system, which has nvidia gpu shows this.

-rw-------. 1 root root 173501686 Nov 19  2024 initramfs-0-rescue-594ece762a4b48678f35f7be2ddf7410.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 105193686 Aug 21 21:48 initramfs-6.15.10-200.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 105466448 Aug  6 17:51 initramfs-6.15.9-201.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 173954191 Aug 27 10:32 initramfs-6.17.0-0.rc3.31.fc43.x86_64.img

Note that the images for f42 were both about 100MB only.

What you did not show was the size of the /boot partition which can be easily done with lsblk -f

6

Hi.
I use Fedora on an Intel NUC 12 Pro desktop with an Intel i5 1240P and an Intel IGPU with Intel AX2116E WiFi.
An HP ProBook 4540s laptop with an i5 3210M IGPU and Qualcomm WiFi.

I removed all the AMD and NVIDIA firmware and now I have:

mauro@fedora:~$ ls -lh /boot/init*
-rw-------. 1 root root 127M 29 ago 19.16 /boot/initramfs-0-rescue-e41efb25f1864bef9f9db3624c17b033.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  59M 21 ago 08.02 /boot/initramfs-6.15.10-200.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  59M  3 ago 08.54 /boot/initramfs-6.15.9-201.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root  60M 29 ago 19.22 /boot/initramfs-6.16.3-200.fc42.x86_64.img
mauro@fedora:~$
7

Note that this firmware is for nouveau driver!

If you only use nvidia, add `omit_drivers+=" nouveau " to your dracut.conf