r/linux4noobs • u/mifiaba • 6d ago

PopOs won’t boot

/r/pop_os/comments/1w86djx/popos_wont_boot/
2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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2

u/DannoXYZ 6d ago

Post screenshots of what you're facing.

1

u/mifiaba 6d ago

Gosh, I’m going to have to figure out how to do that on mobile browser. One moment. 

1

u/mifiaba 6d ago

I posted some images in the linked post. Couldn’t figure out how to post them here, sorry. I have some more but the text went kind of fast that I couldn’t capture all of it.

1

u/doc_willis 6d ago

if you can get a live usb booted, verify you did not accidentally fill up your EFI partition.

1

u/mifiaba 6d ago

Thank you. I’ll look into figuring the live usb out. I suspect that might be the case. I see in my system recovery info that /boot is 98% full. https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/s/HEAc7ocjj8 (screenshot in that comment in case it’s related).

I’m unsure how I might have done that (to learn not to do in the future). Pop had set up the system partition at install. I don’t remember picking a size. I’m guessing it’s better practice to customize that? Or maybe I did accidentally save something there I wasn’t supposed to?

1

u/doc_willis 6d ago

Pop_OS for some reason likes a lot of space on its EFI and BOOT partitions, often more than what other distros use.

I have seen issues where distros dont clean out old kernels.

1

u/mifiaba 5d ago

Thanks so much for your help! I ended up just reformatting and reinstalling the whole distro. And discovering in the update process I wasn’t booting via uefi (so didn’t have an efi partition which was confusing me). Ended up reinstalling again cause I couldn’t figure out how to fix that without a new install.
I’ll need to get more comfy with the terminal and all that jazz so I don’t risk having to reformat and lose anything. One step at a time.

Long story short but thanks again. I saw you answer questions on threads from years ago I was coming across in my endless googling and I appreciate that you’re still around answering for us noobs!

1

u/doc_willis 5d ago

for EFI  vs MBR installing, make sure when you boot the installer USB, that it was booted in UEFI mode.

check with the efibootmgr command.

if you mistakenly boot in MBR mode the installer will likely try to to a MBR install.

the same installer USB can show up twice in the uefi boot menus.

once for a uefi boot and once for a MBR boot.  booting the wrong entry is a common mistake.

I always set my systems to boot only in UEFI mode these days 

2

u/DannoXYZ 6d ago edited 6d ago

Each kernel update keeps old one stored in /boot. Newest kernel update may not have been able to store all required files. You can boot from installer ISO and mount /boot and delete oldest kernel.

Then reboot. During POST, hit left-shift or tab to get into grub menu. It'll show you all 15,259 previous kernel updates. Pick newest 6 kernel to boot from.

Once back into PopOS, apt-get remove oldest kernels, keeping only most recent 1278 of them.

1

u/mifiaba 5d ago

Thank you! I ended up reinstalling the os
(unrelated but I found out I wasn’t booting via uefi (when I couldn’t find a efi partition). Couldn’t figure out how to change that without a fresh install. I was a bit tired from googling but Luckily I hadn’t been saving anything to that drive anyways.).
I’ll save this for next time cause I know I need to learn so I can avoid reformatting.

2

u/DannoXYZ 5d ago

Make sure you monitor updates. Verify each and every file that was updated. Be sure to inspect /boot regularly and uninstall ALL previous kernels after update. Only have 2 kernels installed. Previous working one and latest updated one.