initramfs pointing to wrong kernel version

[Alan Jackson]

Binary package hint: initramfs-tools

I just did a clean install of Karmic onto a system with partitions for Intrepid and Jaunty on it. The install was amazingly smooth (good work guys), including my manual disk reformatting and such, until the very end when it hiccupped about initramfs. I went ahead and rebooted, and it booted up fine, but hung during the install of updated packages. Rebooted again, looks fine, but now I cannot get apt-get to work.

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Setting up initramrs-tools (0.92bubuntu53) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)

Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-12-generic
Cannot find /lib/modules/2.6.17-12-generic
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-12-generic
dpkg: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

Now of course it can't find that.
$ ls /lib/modules
2.6.31-14-generic

This is a real bummer since apt-get is broken...

[Alan Jackson (alan-ajackson)]

Okay, I went back and did a new install, and have the same problems. At the end of the install process, an error pops up :
An error occurred while removing packages:

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

The following packages are in a broken state:

This may be due to .... etc etc etc

So it says packages are broken, but doesn't say which ones. /var/log/syslog looked fine, of course that was after reboot. apt-get is still broken, so I have a near useless install...

[Alan Jackson (alan-ajackson)]

Found a solution.

I dropped into recovery mode, dropped into root, and did :

touch /boot/initrd.img-2.6.17-12-generic
mkdir /lib/modules/2.6.17-12-generic

and then ran dpkg --configure -a

and it all cleared up.

Part of the problem may have been that my /boot partition had gotten very full over the years.

[Gary M (garym)]

Set status based on reporter's last comment. I agree that it looks like the cause was an "over-populated" boot partition.

[Gary M (garym)]

There's probably some overlap here with bug #338563.