Last time (24 Aug) I updated arch on my laptop, /boot filled up. [1] There was a message saying that the build of /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img failed [1] [2] seems to say to adjust /etc/mkinitcpio.conf by dropping kms from HOOKS & adding i915 to MODULES. But this makes me nervous, so I'm asking here. Laptop has only Intel graphics [3], & lsmod shows both i915 & xe. I'm using both X11 & Wayland. Is the above advice good? Should I add xe to MODULES as well? TIA, Brian Keck ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] Laptop is Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 14" /boot partition is 256 MB /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img size is 179 MB [2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=293333 [3] lspci -v 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P [Intel Arc Graphics] (rev 08) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem:Lenovo Device 231e Flags:bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 166, IOMMU group 0 Memoryat 4058000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M] Memoryat 4000000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] ExpansionROM at 000c0000 [virtual] [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities:<access denied> Kerneldriver in use: i915 Kernelmodules: i915, xe
On Wed, 24 Sept 2025 at 14:50, Brian Keck <bwkeck3@gmail.com> wrote:
Last time (24 Aug) I updated arch on my laptop, /boot filled up. [1] There was a message saying that the build of /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img failed [1]
I've had this too. solution for me was adding
COMPRESSION_OPTIONS=(-19 --long) in mkinitcpio.conf and rebuilding kernel
On 24.09.25 16:03, Andy Pieters wrote:
On Wed, 24 Sept 2025 at 14:50, Brian Keck <bwkeck3@gmail.com> wrote:
Last time (24 Aug) I updated arch on my laptop, /boot filled up. [1] There was a message saying that the build of /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img failed [1]
I've had this too. solution for me was adding
COMPRESSION_OPTIONS=(-19 --long)
in mkinitcpio.conf and rebuilding kernel
Also removing linux-firmware-* packages which are not required helps a lot. I did not fine comb through the packages I needed, just removed what I obviously did not and got back to a 50MB fallback image again with default compression settings. linux-firmware-marvell and linux-firmware-mellanox make a huge difference.
On 9/24/25 9:49 AM, Brian Keck wrote:
Last time (24 Aug) I updated arch on my laptop, /boot filled up. [1] There was a message saying that the build of /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img failed [1]
[2] seems to say to adjust /etc/mkinitcpio.conf by dropping kms from HOOKS & adding i915 to MODULES. But this makes me nervous, so I'm asking here. Laptop has only Intel graphics [3], & lsmod shows both i915 & xe. I'm using both X11 & Wayland. Is the above advice good? Should I add xe to MODULES as well?
TIA, Brian Keck
Hi, The advice to drop kms from `HOOKS=()` and add the specific kernel module of your graphics driver to `MODULES=()` is good. I would guess that because your `lsmod` shows `Kerneldriver in use: i915`, you only need i915, and not xe, but I can't say for sure as I do not have Intel graphics. I'd recommend testing with just i915 first. Also, you can consider disabling the fallback initramfs entirely [1]. This is what I've always done because it's large and I've never needed to boot using it. However, as the warning in [1] says, be sure to have a USB with Arch ISO always on hand, so if your system is unbootable you can mount partitions, chroot, and fix issues. Best Regards, AlphaLynx [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mkinitcpio#Disabling_fallback_initramfs_gen...
You can try to backup /boot first and boot a live USB (e.g., Ubuntu or GParted Live). Then open GParted, shrink / (root), and expand /boot to 1GB. And you can reboot to os. This is safer than tweaking mkinitcpio.conf. Your Intel GPU (i915) will work fine—no need to add xe. ---- Replied Message ---- FromBrian Keck<bwkeck3@gmail.com>Date09/24/2025 21:50 Toarch-general@lists.archlinux.org<arch-general@lists.archlinux.org> CcBrian Keck<bwkeck@gmail.com>Subject/boot full Last time (24 Aug) I updated arch on my laptop, /boot filled up. [1] There was a message saying that the build of /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img failed [1] [2] seems to say to adjust /etc/mkinitcpio.conf by dropping kms from HOOKS & adding i915 to MODULES. But this makes me nervous, so I'm asking here. Laptop has only Intel graphics [3], & lsmod shows both i915 & xe. I'm using both X11 & Wayland. Is the above advice good? Should I add xe to MODULES as well? TIA, Brian Keck ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [1] Laptop is Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 14" /boot partition is 256 MB /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img size is 179 MB [2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=293333 [3] lspci -v 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Meteor Lake-P [Intel Arc Graphics] (rev 08) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem:Lenovo Device 231e Flags:bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 166, IOMMU group 0 Memoryat 4058000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M] Memoryat 4000000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] ExpansionROM at 000c0000 [virtual] [disabled] [size=128K] Capabilities:<access denied> Kerneldriver in use: i915 Kernelmodules: i915, xe
On 9/26/25 1:18 AM, wtada233 wrote:
You can try to backup /boot first and boot a live USB (e.g., Ubuntu or GParted Live). Then open GParted, shrink / (root), and expand /boot to 1GB. And you can reboot to os. This is safer than tweaking mkinitcpio.conf. Your Intel GPU (i915) will work fine—no need to add xe.
I would advise against resizing partitions, since it could risk data loss. I'm not sure how big of a risk it actually is though, as I've rarely ever resized partitions. Tweaking mkinitcpio.conf is much much safer in my opinion though, even if you completely screw up the config and the initramfs makes your system unbootable, there's zero risk of data loss. You can easily boot the ISO and chroot to revert mkinitcpio.conf back, and rebuild the initramfs. Best Regards, AlphaLynx
On Fri, 26 Sept 2025 at 19:25, AlphaLynx <alphalynx@alphalynx.dev> wrote:
On 9/26/25 1:18 AM, wtada233 wrote:
You can try to backup /boot first and boot a live USB (e.g., Ubuntu or GParted Live). Then open GParted, shrink / (root), and expand /boot to 1GB. And you can reboot to os. This is safer than tweaking mkinitcpio.conf. Your Intel GPU (i915) will work fine—no need to add xe.
I would advise against resizing partitions, since it could risk data loss.
Yes I too had to read his message twice because it looked topsy turvy to me, not to mention "shrinking" filesystems isn't easily done on some filesystems, especially not if you're on xfs
participants (5)
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AlphaLynx
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Andy Pieters
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Brian Keck
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Thorsten Töpper
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wtada233