I've got this problem with Xubuntu 12.10. It is a fault with the Ubuntu Software Updater. It is also a fault with the installer. My machine was a clean install six months ago. I did a guided, encrypted LVM. I used a boot partition of the recommended size. Now six months later Xubuntu's telling me on the hand I need to upgrade my kernel, and on the other that I can't upgrade my kernel because there is not enough space in my boot partition. There are two problems here: i) the standard setting wasn't big enough to see my machine even through its first upgrade ii) my /boot partition is being over-filled with trash that is nothing to do with me as a user. I shouldn't have to know about this. This problem should not effect me. Notably, this was the first time I opted to have a separate partition for my home directory. All over Ubuntu installs since 2008, on a variety of machines, have been on a single partition. The problem never occurred before in any of these instances. It would be most helpful if the following solutions were given serious consideration: i) The ubuntu/xubuntu installer needs to create a boot partition of the appropriate size. It should inform a user who tries to create a /boot partition that is too small. ii) The Software Center should clean up its trash. It is most unhygenic of it to simply discard unused kernel images in the /boot directory. If it is the case that expert users like to keep old kernels hanging around, then the default should favour non-expert users by having them removed automatically. Perhaps the option could be flagged on the instance of a kernel upgrade. Here's my situation: ~$ sudo df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/xubuntu-root 143G 62G 75G 45% / udev 1.7G 4.0K 1.7G 1% /dev tmpfs 702M 820K 701M 1% /run none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 1.8G 80K 1.8G 1% /run/shm none 100M 20K 100M 1% /run/user /dev/sda1 228M 193M 24M 90% /boot Current kernel: Linux 3.5.0-27-generic UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux ~$ ls -l /boot total 192736 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 848290 Jan 8 22:09 abi-3.5.0-22-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 848290 Jan 24 13:38 abi-3.5.0-23-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 849836 Feb 7 02:13 abi-3.5.0-24-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 849836 Feb 25 18:49 abi-3.5.0-25-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 850088 Mar 8 23:41 abi-3.5.0-26-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 852365 Mar 25 20:20 abi-3.5.0-27-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147871 Jan 8 22:09 config-3.5.0-22-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147871 Jan 24 13:38 config-3.5.0-23-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147944 Feb 7 02:13 config-3.5.0-24-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147944 Feb 25 18:49 config-3.5.0-25-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 147944 Mar 8 23:41 config-3.5.0-26-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 148096 Mar 25 20:20 config-3.5.0-27-generic drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 1024 Apr 30 21:25 grub -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23633726 Jan 19 08:33 initrd.img-3.5.0-22-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23635169 Feb 1 12:16 initrd.img-3.5.0-23-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23650307 Feb 23 12:04 initrd.img-3.5.0-24-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23650893 Feb 27 18:52 initrd.img-3.5.0-25-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23674572 Mar 29 09:52 initrd.img-3.5.0-26-generic -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 23713174 Apr 30 21:25 initrd.img-3.5.0-27-generic drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Nov 28 15:19 lost+found -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 176764 Jan 3 22:48 memtest86+.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 178944 Jan 3 22:48 memtest86+_multiboot.bin -rw------- 1 root root 2904407 Jan 8 22:09 System.map-3.5.0-22-generic -rw------- 1 root root 2904246 Jan 24 13:38 System.map-3.5.0-23-generic -rw------- 1 root root 2905147 Feb 7 02:13 System.map-3.5.0-24-generic -rw------- 1 root root 2905168 Feb 25 18:49 System.map-3.5.0-25-generic -rw------- 1 root root 2899290 Mar 8 23:41 System.map-3.5.0-26-generic -rw------- 1 root root 2900893 Mar 25 20:20 System.map-3.5.0-27-generic -rw------- 1 root root 5134960 Jan 8 22:09 vmlinuz-3.5.0-22-generic -rw------- 1 root root 5134032 Jan 24 13:38 vmlinuz-3.5.0-23-generic -rw------- 1 root root 5138608 Feb 7 02:13 vmlinuz-3.5.0-24-generic -rw------- 1 root root 5138448 Feb 25 18:49 vmlinuz-3.5.0-25-generic -rw------- 1 root root 5124624 Mar 8 23:41 vmlinuz-3.5.0-26-generic -rw------- 1 root root 5127408 Mar 25 20:20 vmlinuz-3.5.0-27-generic ~$dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d' linux-headers-3.5.0-17 linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-18 linux-headers-3.5.0-18-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-19 linux-headers-3.5.0-19-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-21 linux-headers-3.5.0-21-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-22 linux-headers-3.5.0-22-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-23 linux-headers-3.5.0-23-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-24 linux-headers-3.5.0-24-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-25 linux-headers-3.5.0-25-generic linux-headers-3.5.0-26 linux-headers-3.5.0-26-generic linux-image-3.5.0-22-generic linux-image-3.5.0-23-generic linux-image-3.5.0-24-generic linux-image-3.5.0-25-generic linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic linux-image-extra-3.5.0-22-generic linux-image-extra-3.5.0-23-generic linux-image-extra-3.5.0-24-generic linux-image-extra-3.5.0-25-generic linux-image-extra-3.5.0-26-generic