aptitude supposed to uninstall old kernel

[Brian McKee]

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 2:51 AM, Robert Holtzman <holtzm at cox.net> wrote:
> Just ran apt-get update/upgrade on my Hardy installation. A number of
> packages were held back so I ran aptitude dist-upgrade and was informed
> that the 2.6.24-27 kernel would be installed and the 2.6.24-26 would be
> uninstalled. When the upgrade was done I rebooted and saw 2.6.24-26 was
> still listed in the boot menu. Just for the hell of it I chose it and lo
> and behold it booted and ran fine. Looked through synaptic and saw all
> the header and image packages for both kernels are still installed. Did
> aptitude lie to me? I was under the impression that aptitude
> dist-upgrade removed unused/orphan packages.

Aptitude doesn't remove kernels by default so you have a fallback position.
See  /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/05aptitude
aptitude::Keep-Unused-Pattern "^linux-image.*$ |
^linux-restricted-modules.*$ | ^linux-ubuntu-modules.*$";

HTH
Brian