Enlarge the boot partition (Archinstall)

Hello, unfortunately I can only install two kernels. Since my boot partition is only 200MB. I would like to have “linux”, “linux-lts” and “linux-zen” installed.

Can I just run Endeavour ISO and change the partitions with “gparted” or KDE partitions manager? It is a bios installation.

Thank you very much.

inxi -Fxxc0z --no-host
System:
  Kernel: 5.19.8-arch1-1 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.25.5 tk: Qt v: 5.15.6 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM
    Distro: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 4291B60 v: ThinkPad X220
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 9 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 4291B60 v: ThinkPad X220 serial: <superuser required>
    BIOS: coreboot v: CBET4000 4.10-xxxxxxxxx date: xxxxxx
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 42.1 Wh (84.0%) condition: 50.1/69.0 Wh (72.6%)
    volts: 11.8 min: 11.1 model: SANYO 42T4861 serial: <filter>
    status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core i5-2540M bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Sandy Bridge level: v2 rev: 7 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB
    L3: 3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1424 high: 3300 min/max: 800/3300 cores: 1: 3300 2: 798
    3: 800 4: 798 bogomips: 20760
  Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics
    vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-6 ports: active: LVDS-1
    empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2, HDMI-A-3, VGA-1
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0126
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.4 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.3
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    alternate: fbdev,intel,vesa gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: LVDS-1 model: LG Display 0x02d8 res: 1366x768 dpi: 125
    diag: 318mm (12.5")
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 3000 (SNB GT2) v: 3.3 Mesa
    22.1.7 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio
    vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
    chip-ID: 8086:1c20
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.19.8-arch1-1 running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.57 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network vendor: Lenovo ThinkPad T520
    driver: e1000e v: kernel port: 4040 bus-ID: 00:19.0 chip-ID: 8086:1502
  IF: eno0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter driver: rtl8192ce
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8176
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM2045B (BDC-2.1) type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 1-1.4:4 chip-ID: 0a5c:217f
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: disabled
    rfk-block: hardware: no software: no address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 126.55 GiB (53.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Intenso model: N/A size: 238.47 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 237.98 GiB used: 126.43 GiB (53.1%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-2: /boot size: 196.9 MiB used: 122.4 MiB (62.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-3: /home size: 237.98 GiB used: 126.43 GiB (53.1%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-4: /var/log size: 237.98 GiB used: 126.43 GiB (53.1%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 4 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 65535 fan-1: 1994
Info:
  Processes: 206 Uptime: 10m Memory: 15.55 GiB used: 2.3 GiB (14.8%)
  Init: systemd v: 251 default: graphical Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 Packages:
  pm: pacman pkgs: 998 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.21
sudo fdisk -l                                                                           ✔  5s  
Disk /dev/sda: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: INTENSO         
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xd5376323

Device     Boot  Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *      6144    415743    409600   200M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2       421888 500117503 499695616 238.3G 83 Linux


Disk /dev/zram0: 4 GiB, 4294967296 bytes, 1048576 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

It should be possible.

Shrink sda2 from the end of the partition. Move it to right. Expand sda1 to right into the un-allocated space.

:warning:
Copying, pasting, resizing and moving partitions might potentially lead to data loss/corruption.
Please make sure to back up your personal data before any such operations

200 MB can be sufficient if you do not create fallback initrd’s. I have 4 kernels installed:

5.15.68-1-lts
5.19.8-arch1-1
5.19.8-zen1-1-zen
5.19.8-zen1-1.1-zen-custom

And this consumes only 131 MB:

# df /boot
Filesystem     Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/nvme0n1p1 vfat  511M  131M  381M  26% /boot

This is without fallback initrd’s.

1 Like

It works. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately, parted could not extend the FAT32 file system. Here is what I did after “Expand sda1 to right into the un-allocated space.”:

  • copied the contents of sda1 (/boot)
  • formatted the partition sda1 completely as FAT32
  • copied the files back
  • added the new UUID of sda1 to /etc/fstab
1 Like

I just don’t understand the neurotic obsession with the authors of some installation routines to shave the ESP down to the absolute bare minimum, saving a few hundred megabytes. For what? Do people really care if their ESP is 200Mb or 1Gb? When the typical hard drive or SSD is several hundred gigabytes in size? Really? What is the point? And if the reply is that “I want the minimum wasted space possible.” Then that is just another example of neurotic obsession when hard drive space is hundreds, if not thousands, of times the capacity of the differences involved.

2 Likes

Glad you got it working the way you wanted!

Not sure but you might need dosfstools (optional dependency for Gparted):

$ pacman -Si dosfstools
Repository      : core
Name            : dosfstools
Version         : 4.2-2
Description     : DOS filesystem utilities
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://github.com/dosfstools/dosfstools
Licenses        : GPL3
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : glibc
Optional Deps   : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Download Size   : 134.87 KiB
Installed Size  : 408.88 KiB
Packager        : Tobias Powalowski <tpowa@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sun 30 Jan 2022 09:23:12 PM CET
Validated By    : MD5 Sum  SHA-256 Sum  Signature

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