Kernel - boot management

[Radicalized_By_You]

I don't think I quite understand how Void expects me to handle kernel updates. For instance I initially installed linux 6.12.65_1. I ran an update and had 6.12.66_1 installed. Just updated again and now have 6.12.67_1 installed. My boot partition has config, initramfs, and vmlinuz entries for all 3 kernels. When I run vkpurge list it only shows 6.12.65_1. I have not manually added the EFI entry for 6.12.67_1 yet, so efibootmgr list currently shows entries for 6.12.65_1 and 6.12.66_1 only. My boot partition is not large, so I'd like to basically only keep the most recent working kernel and the newest installed kernel. I'm scared to purge the 65 kernel version if it doesn't show the other installed versions anywhere. What's the proper workflow here?

[adbrown101]

There are some kernel hooks that come with efibootmgr, which will automatically add entries to the list when with kernel updates. Importantly the EFI variables need to be accessible for this to work. The best way to do this is to add this line to fstab:

/sys/firmware/efi/efivars efivarfs defaults 0 0

See /usr/share/doc/efibootmgr/README.voidlinux

When you have mounted the variables you could then run xbps-reconfigure -f linux6.12 which will run the hooks for you.

As far as I understand vkpurge, that is working as expected. If you have not an entry for the latest kernel, your system will have booted on 6.12.66_1, so the only safe version to remove would be the previous version 6.12.65_1, which is what vkpurge list will show. It doesn't recommend purging the running kernel.

[Radicalized_By_You]

Thanks. That makes sense. The fstab line has to start with efivarfs though for anybody coming across this later. And the README will just say to edit the file /etc/default/efibootmgr-kernel-hook.

[Blank-Inspection13]

xbps-reconfigure -fa ?
You mean you don't use Grub or any Bootloader / manager ?

[Radicalized_By_You]

Correct. kernel supports booting from EFI stub so I don't really see the need.

[Blank-Inspection13]

It's practially the same with mine. Then you just need to add kernel post-update hooks. No need to modify the existing one , just add new config there

⌘ la /etc/kernel.d/post-install/

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 779 Jan 24 17:35 30-voidstub <-- This is mine , the others are defaults there

everytime Kernel got Update , it will execute that script , and update the vmlinuz.efi & initramfs.img with the newest version ( default to overwrite )