Unfinished Kernel Installation while upgrading leaves broken kernel

[Phillip Austerfield]

I upgraded my system from KUbuntu 21.10 to KUbuntu 22.04 via Gnome Software Updater today.

I did not have enough free space on my mounted drive that holds the installed kernels, so the kernel installation exited with an error but the overall installation completed successfully.

A final reboot left me with my laptop not booting anymore; I had to select another installed kernel via grub before I could boot successfully again.

After I had removed some unused kernels I reinstalled the latest which worked this time.

There are 3 problems here (to my mind) and what I would have expected:

1) The error message did not say much to me at all, although this is quite a problematic situation. I did not know what to do from the message, despite being a software developer and not shy to read console output (it said I might find myself with a broken system, but yes, what now? How to "unbreak" it, if at all...).

2) If I do not have enough space to install a kernel, the update process should not update my grub as if it had worked fine and, consequently, try to load the broken kernel at all. It should either remove the unfinished installation automatically or leave it like this but restore to the last "working" one.

3) I am not shy on researching issues on the internet and "knew" that I could boot using different kernels. Compared to more naive users (who really only want to use the system), this is a dead end, although it does not have to be that way, because the "working" kernels are there and, being bold, the system should manage this.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Libera.chat.

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