boot full (SOLVED)

artgamer2009

hi im reposting because i dident give any info about my pi soo.. yeah here it goes
again....
i wanted to place a driver in the boot directory but it seems to be full...
do someone know wich files can be deleted?
thank you!
info (i told ya):
Pi Model or other hardware: 3 model b
Power Supply used: 0.3 amp charger (got included with my kit)
RetroPie Version Used:4.1 (i guess?)
Built From:stock retropie
USB Devices connected:only my controller
Controller used: xbox 360 controller wired
Error messages received:none
Guide used: driver tutorial from etaprime on how to install driver for the gamehat
File: none!
Emulator: also none! (rlly?)
Attachment of config files: none
How to replicate the problem:idk
thanks again!
bye!

Clyde

This command will delete any older kernels that aren't used anymore:

sudo apt autoremove

I wouldn't delete any files on /boot manually, as this can easily break your system.

mitu

How much space do you have free on your /boot partition and how large is the file you're trying to copy ? On a regular RetroPie install, the boot partition is 36M, with only 22M taken. A regular Linux kernel has less than 5M, so any driver should be able to fit into the 10M left.

Clyde

@mitu Did the size of /boot change in Retropie since April 2018? Because the /boot partition of my stock Retropie 4.4 that I installed in April 2018 has a size of 57 MB.

$ df -h | grep boot
/dev/mmcblk0p1   57M   40M   18M  69% /boot

mitu

@Clyde Actually I was wrongly reading the numbers - 36M is the free space. So, indeed, the bootpartition is 57M (the Raspbian default), with only 22M taken - a whole 36M free on a default install.

Clyde

@mitu Thanks for the clarification. There may be less free space on an regularly updated Retropie like mine. I wondered why my /boot has 40M used space although I cleaned it up with sudo apt autoremove. Apart from the kernel and the firmware files start*, the only files that are bigger than 1M are firmware files for the RPi 4 (start4*, see https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/boot_folder.md), which should be new since the RPi 4 didn't exist in 2018.

$ du -ch /boot/*
24K     /boot/bcm2708-rpi-b.dtb
24K     /boot/bcm2708-rpi-b-plus.dtb
24K     /boot/bcm2708-rpi-cm.dtb
24K     /boot/bcm2708-rpi-zero.dtb
24K     /boot/bcm2708-rpi-zero-w.dtb
26K     /boot/bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb
26K     /boot/bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb
28K     /boot/bcm2710-rpi-3-b-plus.dtb
26K     /boot/bcm2710-rpi-cm3.dtb
40K     /boot/bcm2711-rpi-4-b.dtb
52K     /boot/bootcode.bin
2,0K    /boot/cmdline.txt
2,0K    /boot/cmdline.txt.backup
2,0K    /boot/cmdline.txt.test
2,0K    /boot/config.txt
20K     /boot/COPYING.linux
4,0K    /boot/fixup4cd.dat
6,0K    /boot/fixup4.dat
10K     /boot/fixup4db.dat
10K     /boot/fixup4x.dat
4,0K    /boot/fixup_cd.dat
8,0K    /boot/fixup.dat
10K     /boot/fixup_db.dat
10K     /boot/fixup_x.dat
2,0K    /boot/issue.txt
5,1M    /boot/kernel7.img
5,4M    /boot/kernel7l.img
4,8M    /boot/kernel.img
2,0K    /boot/LICENCE.broadcom
20K     /boot/LICENSE.oracle
604K    /boot/overlays
746K    /boot/start4cd.elf
4,5M    /boot/start4db.elf
2,7M    /boot/start4.elf
3,6M    /boot/start4x.elf
670K    /boot/start_cd.elf
4,7M    /boot/start_db.elf
2,8M    /boot/start.elf
3,7M    /boot/start_x.elf
2,0K    /boot/wifikeyfile.txt
40M     total

(I don't know what the overlays directory is doing there.)

Sorry for the digression while we're waiting for @artgamer2009's response. 😇 But maybe it can help him/her to know the contents of /boot in a Retropie installation that's running and updated for some time. I'll have to say though that I did compile some additional files from Github repos like WebtroPie, dispmanx_vnc, gunconf etc., so I don't know if that added something to my /boot that wouldn't be there otherwise.

artgamer2009

@Clyde hey thanks for the help! I do not have my raspberry pi at my sight but when I do, I'm really going to tell how it was going again thx for the help!

artgamer2009

it worked! thx guys!