The reimage is done and verified on hardware: the boot partition is 2 GiB
and reports it, the hardware profile's kernel parameter and module blacklist
are live, and the encrypted root unlocks to a console login.
The install procedure ran without divergence, which is the reproducibility
evidence the task was after.
The reimage also wiped the hand-written git identity, so the gotcha
describing it is updated to record the failure it now provokes.
Each generation stores a kernel and an initrd on the EFI system partition,
and this host runs a large third-party kernel, so 512 MiB holds only about
seven. An exhausted partition fails at bootloader installation, after the
build has already succeeded.
The partition cannot grow in place: it sits first on the disk with the
encrypted container immediately behind it, and an encrypted volume's start
offset cannot move without rewriting its whole payload. Only an install
applies this layout, so the change takes effect at the next reimage and
does nothing to the running machine until then.
Record that a flake only sees git-tracked files, which cost an evaluation
earlier, and correct the git identity gotcha that a hand-written gitconfig
had made false.
Only the hardware profile needs to precede the reimage, because it is the
one change that touches boot: a kernel parameter and a module blacklist.
Validating it while a known-good generation still exists means the reimage
installs a configuration already proven on this hardware, where a freshly
imaged machine has no rollback target.
The housekeeping and commit-identity changes carry no boot risk and apply
equally well after the wipe, so they no longer gate it. The case for
reimaging soon rests on the machine holding almost nothing, and that
weakens with every day of use.
neogaia was installed from a configuration written before the hardware
existed, so several things are now knowably wrong rather than guessed.
Adopt the upstream hardware profile for this laptop, which fixes deep
sleep, thermal management and the touchpad driver. Bound the store, the
retained generations and the boot menu, none of which have a limit today.
Declare the commit identity, which currently lives only in one checkout.
Grow the EFI system partition, which holds around seven generations at
its present size and cannot be enlarged in place, since the encrypted
container immediately behind it would have to be relocated. That makes a
reimage the only practical route, and the cheapest moment for one is now.
It doubles as the reproducibility test of the install documentation.
