How to remove unwanted kernels

larryt · #1 3rd August 2007, 07:45 PM

Hi all,

I assume that to remove unwanted kernels, that I cd to /boot and remove the ones that I don't want any more.

I have a PAE enabled kernel that I have built a vmware kernel mod against. The others just add confusion.

Anybody see any problems with me doing that?

Larry

***bob*** · #2 3rd August 2007, 08:52 PM

No, you can certainly remove them "yum remove kernel 2.xxxxxxxxx" and then 'yum --exclude=kernel update' . You might just want to hang onto a spare in case you ever have problems, but that would be the only thing I can think of.

leigh123linux · #3 3rd August 2007, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bob

No, you can certainly remove them "yum remove kernel 2.xxxxxxxxx" and then 'yum --exclude=kernel update' . You might just want to hang onto a spare in case you ever have problems, but that would be the only thing I can think of.

You can get the kernel names with this command

yum list kernel* |grep installed

larryt · #4 4th August 2007, 01:42 PM

Hi,

Thank you both very much for your help. I followed the instructions but had a little hitch. The kernel I was running had both a PAE extension and a non PAE extension. I was running and wanted to keep the PAE kernel. Both were of the same version. So when I gave the yum remove kernel 2.xxxxxx without the PAE extension, low and behold it removed BOTH my kernels, which at that point were my last two kernels. So I had NO kernels in /boot.

I went back through my bash history and found the yum command where I downloaded and installed the PAE kernel. I repeated that to get it back. I then checked /boot and sure enough, I had it back.

On reboot though, grub complained that the kernel to boot off of was missing. DISASTER!

I rebooted off the install DVD, selected rescue mode, mounted the /boot and / file systems and checked the /boot image against the /etc/grub.conf file and sure enough, grub was still focused on one of the old kernels. I fixed this by giving it the kernel name that matched /boot, then pulled the DVD and rebooted. The machine came up fine.

I've since gotten other work done with this by integration of the Nvidia drivers and the Vmware support all in my PAE enabled kernel.

Thank you all very much on your support in this matter. If it wasn't for the help of contributors like yourself, I'd be sunk on Fedora long ago. You are all very much appreicated.

Larry

***bob*** · #5 4th August 2007, 02:07 PM

And, thanks very much for posting back and mentioning what you did and the results. It will probably keep someone else from going through a bit of hell like you did. Sorry that I didn't think that far ahead to recognize what was going to happen with that command.

larryt · #6 4th August 2007, 02:20 PM

Hi Bob,

No problem, it's all part of my learning curve. Your continued help and support is welcome.

Larry

lazlow · #7 4th August 2007, 07:04 PM

Larry

This is one of those thing that a gui front end comes in really handy for. I use smart package manager. It shows you what you have installed with a green box if you want to remove it just click on it and then click on the action button.

yum install smart-gui

If shows up under Applications->system tools-> smart package manger (at least on F7). It is pretty handy for a lot of stuff and is quite a bit faster than yum.

Good Luck
Lazlow