How large should I make my boot partition if I wish to upgrade for the next 100 years

[linuxcreamer]

I am hypothetically interested in using my system for the next 100 years without reinstalling.

Ignoring other potential upgrade blockers, how large do you think I should make my boot partition if I want it to be big enough for the next 100 years of upgrades?

Would the answer change depending on whether I use Debian Stable, Fedora Silverblue, or a different distribution?

 

[CaffeineAddict]

You won't be using it for 100 years nor it is recommended to use it for whole life, it's good to clean reinstall at least every major OS upgrade.
1GB boot drive and 512 MB EFI partition is today's standard that should serve you for long enough.

No clue how to give some precise formula, it likely depends on individual use.

 

[Condobloke]

G'day linuxcreamer, Welcome to Linux.org

It wont be the size of the boot partition or the distro that will make it last a long time ......it will be security updates....the lack of them will eventually slow your distro to a crawl.
Security updates, cease to happen at a distros' EOL....end of life.

I believe Ubuntu has a paid arrangement where you can increase the longevity of a distro ....by how long etc etc I have zero idea. Someone here will know about it. It certainly won't be anywhere close to what you want. Too many things change ....even over the course of 10 years, distros evolve enormously.

 

[kc1di]

Hello @linuxcreamer
Welcome to the Linux.org forum, enjoy
Doubt the 100 years but I make my / partition about 30gigs most modern distros require around 20 or more. Which distro are you looking at?

 

[theLegionWithin]

i went the full disk as the partition so I dont need to worry about resizing the partition at some point. I store all of my media on external ssd's.

 

[Brickwizard]

my boot partition is 280 with only 5 used with 2 distros [kept updated]

 

[APTI]

I am hypothetically interested in using my system for the next 100 years without reinstalling.

Ignoring other potential upgrade blockers, how large do you think I should make my boot partition if I want it to be big enough for the next 100 years of upgrades?

Would the answer change depending on whether I use Debian Stable, Fedora Silverblue, or a different distribution?

Please tell me where you get your hard drives.... I would love one to last so long.

on to serious I find a good 20gig partition will hold for a long time. I use fedora and that works fine. It does not keep every upgrade so space gets reused.

 

[dos2unix]

How big should your boot partition be for 100 years of upgrades?


There’s a lot of good advice here, but realistically, a 3–4 GB boot partition is usually more than enough—even if you're hypothetically planning to run your system for the next 100 years without reinstalling.


You don’t keep accumulating kernels forever. Most distros clean up older ones automatically. For example, on Fedora you might see something like:

• Month 1: 6.16.11-200.fc42.x86_64, 6.16.12-201.fc42.x86_64, 6.17.0-0.rc6.49.fc43.x86_64
• Month 2: 6.17.3-298.fc43.x86_64, 6.17.4-299.fc43.x86_64, 6.17.5-300.fc43.x86_64
• Month 3: 6.17.6-301.fc43.x86_64, 6.17.7-302.fc43.x86_64, 6.17.8-303.fc43.x86_64

…and so on. Older versions are removed, and you typically retain just the latest 3 or 4.

Distro-specific behavior:​

• Debian Stable: Uses apt and dpkg to manage kernels. Old ones are flagged for removal via autoremove, and most systems keep only 1–2 fallback versions. [baeldung.com]
• Fedora Silverblue: Uses rpm-ostree, which keeps one previous deployment by default. You can pin more if needed, but the system doesn’t accumulate kernels unless you explicitly override. [docs.fedor...roject.org]
• Fedora Workstation (non-atomic): Kernel updates are frequent, but older ones are pruned automatically unless pinned. Fedora 43 ships with kernel 6.17.x. [linuxsecurity.com]

So unless you’re disabling cleanup or manually pinning kernels, your boot partition won’t grow indefinitely. If you're planning for extreme long-term uptime, your bigger concerns will be evolving bootloader formats, filesystem support, and hardware compatibility—not kernel bloat.

 

[The Duck]

I am hypothetically interested in using my system for the next 100 years without reinstalling.

Ignoring other potential upgrade blockers, how large do you think I should make my boot partition if I want it to be big enough for the next 100 years of upgrades?

What are you smoking.

Whatever it is you should share with the rest of us.

 

[bob466]

A few years ago on another Forum a mod said..."there's no such thing as a stupid question" ahhh but there is...I think this question comes very close to first place with..."how do I install linux without a Monitor.

 

[The Duck]

"how do I install linux without a Monitor. View attachment 28413 View attachment 28414

That would be an accomplishment of genius if that was possible.

 

[wizardfromoz]

@linuxcreamer - welcome to linux.org.

Perhaps you should get your terminology together.

Are you talking about your root partition? That is, where your system files and operating system is stored?

Typically, boot is a small folder stored within root, unless you choose to make a separate partition at install time.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[MikeRocor]

laimerIgnoring other potential upgrade blockers, how large do you think I should make my boot partition if I want it to be big enough for the next 100 years of upgrades?

Disclaimer: I don't know the answer to your question. I suspect it would depend upon what distro you are using.

But tell me if I'm right - the fact that you asked such a question makes me think you have at least once gone down the path of diligently working out the expected capacity requirements for various parts of your system (including the boot partition), then increasing the resulting capacity by some large percentage, partitioning your disk(s) accordingly, getting you installation just the way you want it... and then running out of space on the boot partition waaaaayyy sooner than you ever thought possible.

I had this exact scenario multiple times when I was still using MS Windows, both on servers and on workstations, and I swore off having multiple partitions because of it. I did have a server with separate physical drives for the boot system but, due to constraints beyond my control, the boot drives (mirrored) still weren't big enough. Now that I'm not fooling around with Windows any more, I'm still in the habit of not partitioning in most cases other then to have a tiny little EFI partition alongside the "main" one. Of course nowadays I have an enormous hard drive (two of them, really, 'cause how else am I gonna backup such a drive) and an enormously tiny OS (which doesn't update except when I tell it to) (*).

And realistically, of course, your drive's not good for a hundred years regardless of capacity issues.

*: Imagine Robin Williams' voice as "the Genie": "Phenomenal cosmic storage capacity... Itty bitty operating system."