How to fix boot partition free space in Ubuntu

Here is how to free up space in the boot partition in Ubuntu, which may cause issues when trying to update or install a new application. Make sure you have a good backup and be careful running some commands, just double check typo before executing it.

To see If you are running out of boot partition space, run the following command:

command: sudo df -h

You will see how much space is in use, in this screenshot, its /boot is 100% used

You can try the following command which may clean automatically for you some unused packages.

command: sudo apt autoremove

If the above command gives you an error, then continue do following steps

find your currently active boot image by running the following command:

Command:  sudo uname -r

Output may look something like this: 4.15.0-143-generic

To list all images except for active:

Command: sudo dpkg –list ‘linux-image*’|awk ‘{ if ($1==”ii”) print $2}’|grep -v `uname -r`

Output:

linux-image-4.15.0-151-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-156-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-158-generic

To list of images:

sudo dpkg -l | grep linux-image

To remove unused images:

The numbers are based on the output command above, so if your version numbers are different, make sure you change them to match your output.

Command: sudo rm -rf /boot/*-4.15.0-{151,156,158}-*

Now that you have some free space, let’s do some clean-up. If you try to clean up using apt autoremove, you may still get errors like these:

To Fix broken packages

You will need to fix the broken packages before you can do any other clean up, run the following command:

Command: sudo apt –fix-broken install

Now that broken packages are fixed, then re-run the autoremove command you will be able to free up disk space:

Update your system

Then re-check for any updates and install it to secure your system:

Command: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

You want to see: All packages are up to date

That’s it, hope this helped you out