Trying to run sudo dnf update gave the following read-out after downloading all the packages.
Running transaction
Transaction failed: Rpm transaction failed.
How to clean up or create 2MB more space, for the update to install. Does there have to be some basic clean-up in general for the future, if so how to accomplish that.
What’s the current contents of your /boot partition? How big is it? Is this an upgrade from an older Fedora install, or a fresh Fedora 43 install?
Hi J B, Last week I did the install Fed 43 on top of the Fed42. That all went pretty smoothly and I’ve done some updates since then.
There was a problem with gstreamer1plugins, but that has been resolved with late updates which were put out the next day.
Here is a screen shot from disc’s. This shot is from the Fed43 . the other 1.0 TB is Windows 10. it is a dual boot system, each with its own SSD of 1.0 TB
Hi J B , I let Fed 42 down load and install Fed 43 after being made aware that Fed 43 was available.
How many kernels are currently installed in your /boot? The default of 3?
You can delete the oldest files in /boot and then update.
Hi, I’m not exactly sure. How can I find out ? using the Terminal?
and then eliminate what is not necessary ?
the proper command to find out used/free space on /boot is
df -h /boot
to find this out:
rpm -qa kernel-core
we can also take a look on what’s using up the space in your /boot partition:
ls -lh /boot
For new installs of F43, the recommended /boot size is 2 GB. You may need to reduce the number of kernels you have or, even better, remove the rescue kernels - they are not needed.
Do you have nvidia hardware (with that the firmware files get bigger and bigger).
Hi
I ran:
$ uname -a
Linux fedora 6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Oct 23 15:35:13 UTC 2025 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Then:
$ rpm -qa kernel-core
kernel-core-6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64
kernel-core-6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64
kernel-core-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64
Then:
$ ls -lh /boot
total 825M
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 287K 23. Okt 00:00 config-6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 287K 23. Okt 00:00 config-6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 287K 29. Okt 00:00 config-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64
drwx------. 4 root root 4.0K 1. Jan 1970 efi
drwx------. 5 root root 4.0K 31. Okt 09:31 grub2
-rw-------. 1 root root 268M 29. Okt 14:43 initramfs-0-rescue-53b188123f0b46faada930f64e747e7c.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 150M 29. Okt 09:58 initramfs-6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 152M 29. Okt 14:42 initramfs-6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64.img
-rw-------. 1 root root 152M 4. Nov 11:14 initramfs-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64.img
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4.0K 26. Jun 17:03 loader
drwx------. 2 root root 16K 26. Jun 17:00 lost+found
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 46 29. Okt 09:58 symvers-6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64.xz -> /lib/modules/6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64/symvers.xz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 46 29. Okt 14:41 symvers-6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64.xz -> /lib/modules/6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64/symvers.xz
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 46 4. Nov 11:13 symvers-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64.xz -> /lib/modules/6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64/symvers.xz
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 12M 23. Okt 00:00 System.map-6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 12M 23. Okt 00:00 System.map-6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 12M 29. Okt 00:00 System.map-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 18M 29. Okt 14:42 vmlinuz-0-rescue-53b188123f0b46faada930f64e747e7c
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 18M 23. Okt 00:00 vmlinuz-6.17.5-200.fc42.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 18M 23. Okt 00:00 vmlinuz-6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 18M 29. Okt 00:00 vmlinuz-6.17.6-300.fc43.x86_64
The initial update has been installed in the meantime because I removed an older Fed 42 kernel and that gave enough room to do the update install.
All the read-outs above as per your instructions are after the update.
If you don’t want to adjust your partition sizes, you’ll likely want to change this line in your /etc/dnf/dnf.conf:
installonly_limit=3
to be a 2 instead of a 3. Disabling the creation of rescue kernels is also an option, as frankly they’re not very useful and if you’re at the point where you might need it, you likely need to do a reinstall anyway.
After running this in the Terminal: $ df -h /boot
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb2 974M 838M 69M 93% /boot
Is it possible to increase the size of the Partition in Gparted ? If so, what is the best method to do that?
Yes, as far as I know, there is nvidia on the system. What, if anything can / should be done with that?
Since there is plenty of space on sdb3, can I increase sdb2 (boot partition) ? What is the safest way to do that, if possible?
I would much rather delete the rescue kernel and ave 270 MB (=25% capacity) on your boot partition than deleting a regular kernel. You can always boot a rescue kernel from the live environment (installer iso).
sudo rm -f /boot/*-rescue-*
sudo dnf remove dracut-config-rescue
if you dont remove that package, the rescue kernel will get reinstalled.
Okay, I see that I am not the only one with this problem and that is is being highly discussed.
I did the:
sudo rm -f /boot/*-rescue-*
sudo dnf remove dracut-config-rescue
Then: df -h /boot
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb2 974M 553M 354M 61% /boot
So there is somewhat more space available.
I think I would still prefer to increase the boot partition, if possible, any tips as to go about doing that safely?
It is safe to do.
You need to shrink one partition, and enlarge the other.
First, run
lsblk -f
to see what format your partions are.
$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda
├─sda1 vfat FAT32 8817-F9BB
├─sda2
├─sda3 ntfs 4422203522202E7C
└─sda4 ntfs 74F2556EF2553618
sdb
├─sdb1 vfat FAT32 C8B4-C385 579.5M 3% /boot/efi
├─sdb2 ext4 1.0 bdf43cb2-e238-45c1-87c9-f3ec1b41b89b 353.6M 57% /boot
└─sdb3 btrfs fedora 6a2a12ec-a4f9-48e2-8f98-b3d0a193489f 752G 19% /home
/
sr0
zram0 swap 1 zram0 9c8aed1c-db15-4eb4-a636-1fa986776e44 [SWAP]
sda is Windows10
sdb is Fed43
If you are on Gnome,
gnome-disks
Should be able to shrink your /home which is btrfs
I have gnome-disks and Gparted. Is one easier or safer to use than the other?
Does shrinking /home automatically increase the boot partition? or do I first shrink / home and then increase boot partition? I’m not exactly sure of the procedure. Sorry.
There are a couple forum posts where users created 2GB boot partitions. Be sure you have good backups before attempting this:
Removing the rescue kernel is generally a good solution — simple straightforward steps, easily reversible, and something most users never need.