Removing old kernel entries in GRUB boot loader menu

Derek Broughton news at pointerstop.ca
Fri Jul 14 12:34:58 UTC 2006


James Gray wrote:

> To see what kernels are installed, try this:
> 
> export COLUMNS=150; dpkg -l '*image*' | grep ^ii

James, that's so last millenium :-)

aptitude search linux-image | grep "^i"

(or apt-get).  

> Best option is to find the correct meta-package for whatever kernel you
> want to run (386/686/k7/k8/smp/etc), install the meta package.  Then
> when new kernels come out it removes the old one as part of the
> meta-package upgrade process.  You still need to manually remove the old
> kernels that were installed PRIOR to the meta-package.
 
Ah.  This can only work if aptitude is _not_ installed.  aptitude, by
default, installs a conf file that prevents automatically purging images. 
A good idea, imo, as about 50% of the dapper kernels I've installed (and I
have installed every 686 kernel ever released in dapper) have had adverse
effects, so I keep the previous kernel until I'm sure the new one is good.

I doubt this would work if you use apt-get, either, as the meta-package
never conflicts with prior kernels.  Perhaps synaptic handles the purge
itself.
-- 
derek





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