/boot/initrd.img

[guru]

I did a sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade. After this I looked into the /boot partition. Why are there two identical 60 MByte files:

ls -l /boot/initrd.img*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64347868 Feb 13 17:04 /boot/initrd.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64347868 Feb 13 17:04 /boot/initrd.img-5.16.0-1-librem5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64347078 Feb  7 21:06 /boot/initrd.img.bak

diff /boot/initrd.img /boot/initrd.img-5.16.0-1-librem5
echo $?
0

[dos]

…because that’s how our flash-kernel used to work (until the update that’s about to migrate to byzantium soon). The installed kernel was compressed, but u-boot expected an uncompressed image to boot from, so flash-kernel made an uncompressed copy, which also meant copying initrd (which doesn’t need decompression, so it got copied verbatim).

The new version gets rid of unversioned files, as new kernel packages now come with already decompressed images.

[guru]

@guru

diff /boot/initrd.img /boot/initrd.img-5.16.0-1-librem5

Perhaps you missed my point. Why there are two identical files and not only one file and a sym link?

[dos]

I did not, and I explained it already

[Quarnero]

My non-expert opinion would say that your above posted output, showing current initrd.img.bak belongs to the prior 5.16.2pureos1 version:

@Quarnero

linux-image-5.16.0-1-librem5/byzantium in version 5.16.3pureos1 and this confirms to myself that versions of 5.16.2pureos1 (second one) and 5.16.1pureos1 (first one) already belong to the previous apt upgrade.

[guru]

@dos

so flash-kernel made an uncompressed copy, which also meant copying initrd

I read your explanation, but my question remains: why it copied initrd and not just made a sym link?

[dos]

Because that’s just not how flash-kernel works (I guess because /boot may be on a FAT filesystem, for instance).

[Quarnero]

After sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade linux-image-librem5, as of today , please repeat:

@guru

ls -l /boot/initrd.img*