[sf-lug] NEED INFO ABOUT BOOT SECTOR, SPACE LIMITS

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Tue, 2017-08-01 at 20:00 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Tom Turner (seameadowlake at gmail.com):
> 
> > Using Synaptic to remove old Linux kernels:
> > 
> > https://askubuntu.com/questions/2793/how-do-i-remove-old-kernel-versions-to-clean-up-the-boot-menu
> 
> Potentially useful to some _other_ Ubuntu users, but bear in mind that
> Nikki cannot do that until she has cleared out some space in /boot,
> because apt-get/dpkg cannot operate until she does, using Synaptic or
> any other front-end (or lack thereof) to apt-get.  Thus the nature of
> her problem, you see.  It'll get a 'not enough space on device' error.
> 
> Also, some of the advice given on that page looks pretty dubious, to me
> (for reasons covered in the linked bug).

Epilogue: Tom's guess turned out to be correct in that Mikki's
installation was done using the LVM option, and the half-gig /boot
partition was full of kernels. It didn't even take many to fill it.
Since everything had already been backed up as prep for a reinstall, and
a web search showed no model-specific issues for the machine, an Asus
EeePC 1000HE, I saved "dpkg --get-selections" to the backup drive, wiped
the MBR, and started the 16.04.2 install. I left it doing the
dist-upgrade afterward on its 1.5 Mbps (I think) connection, not getting
a chance to do "apt-get dselect-upgrade" after that.

She had also hoped to have use of a scanner, and she had retained one
from the Windows days, sitting unused since. It had no brand markings
except for "3D Pro" on the top, but I managed to determine that the
"DP66HC" under the FCC ID on the bottom label was the model number,
apparently part of the Compeye Simplex DP66V series. She still has both
the parallel and USB cables with which it came, and the original W95/NT
driver CD. The only presence lsusb shows is the PowerVision 8630 USB to
parallel bridge, but an "HRP 8701" chip is visible through the glass.
The logo on the chip is two H's in an oval. The most relevant search
result is not encouraging:
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/2007-September/019878.html
Because there is a period after the URL in the post and no delimiter, it
never got caught in the Internet Wayback Machine, so I have no idea what
other details were on that page, but obviously not anything close to a
working driver. I then found a different driver for a different scanner
that same person had and conflated the two. Presumably, this scanner
could still work in a virtualized old Windows, but her machine lacks the
resources.