Why keep all the images?
Why keep all the images?
Posted Oct 16, 2025 20:11 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46)In reply to: Why keep all the images? by smurf
Parent article: Last-minute /boot boost for Fedora 43
Good for you, but this is talking about Fedora, which has different packaging policies and system setup than Debian. For example, a minimal [1] RPi install with Fedora's current defaults fails with a 1GB /boot:
$ du -sch /boot/*6.16.9*
324K /boot/config-6.16.9-200.fc42.aarch64
71M /boot/dtb-6.16.9-200.fc42.aarch64
194M /boot/initramfs-6.16.9-200.fc42.aarch64.img
0 /boot/symvers-6.16.9-200.fc42.aarch64.xz
8.9M /boot/System.map-6.16.9-200.fc42.aarch64
16M /boot/vmlinuz-6.16.9-200.fc42.aarch64
289M total
... 298MB for just *one* kernel. Fedora's defaults to 3 kernels and a rescue image.
[1] Set up with the "Fedora Minimal 42" aarch64 image, with a handful of additional packages installed to drive an RTL-SDR receiver.
Posted Oct 17, 2025 13:38 UTC (Fri)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 17, 2025 13:57 UTC (Fri)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
Interestingly, on my x86_64 workstation, the generated intramfs is only 40% of the size of what's on the RPi.
$ du -sch *6.16.10*
...This installation was first set up over a decade ago and upgraded in-place (hardware and software alike) ever since, so some amount of drift from what a fresh install is to be expected. Maybe I'm missing some of the firmware files that are now installed by default?
(x86_64 also lacks the 71MB of per-kernel devicetree files needed for Arm systems. Additionally, most of the firmware packages are utterly irrelevant on an RPi3 that lacks PCIe altogether. But I understand why they have to include everything on a generic image..)
Why keep all the images?
Why keep all the images?
284K config-6.16.10-200.fc42.x86_64
75M initramfs-6.16.10-200.fc42.x86_64.img
0 symvers-6.16.10-200.fc42.x86_64.xz
12M System.map-6.16.10-200.fc42.x86_64
17M vmlinuz-6.16.10-200.fc42.x86_64
103M total