{"id":5864,"date":"2016-05-06T18:54:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T18:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=5864"},"modified":"2016-05-06T18:54:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T18:54:45","slug":"remove-old-kernels-ubuntu-16-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2016\/05\/remove-old-kernels-ubuntu-16-04\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Easily Remove Old Kernels in Ubuntu 16.04"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Linux<\/a><\/p>\n

For LVM, encrypted, or limited-storage systems, you need to regularly remove old kernels to prevent your computer (\/boot partition) from running out of storage space.<\/p>\n

Removing old kernels is easy. You can do it manually, or set unattended-upgrades to do it automatically. For details, open terminal from App Launcher or via Ctrl+Alt+T<\/b> shortcut keys, and follow the steps below:<\/p>\n

Remove Automatically Installed Kernels:<\/b><\/p>\n

1. To remove the kernels that were automatically installed via regular system updates, open terminal and run:<\/p>\n

sudo apt autoremove --purge<\/pre>\n
It will ask you to type in user password and then remove old kernels as well as other automatically installed packages that are no longer needed.<\/p>\n
\"autoremove\"<\/a><\/p>\n
2. To enable automatic removing of old kernels:
\n
<\/i>
Enable Kernel autoremoving may cause problems if your package management is broken, see this bug<\/a>.<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n
  • Run command to enable unattended upgrades. For Desktop Ubuntu 16.04, this is enabled by default.\n
    sudo dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  • Edit the config file via command (first install gksu via sudo apt install gksu<\/code>):\n
    gksudo gedit \/etc\/apt\/apt.conf.d\/50unattended-upgrades<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
    When the file opens, uncomment the following line and change the value to true:<\/p>\n
    \/\/Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies \"false\";<\/code><\/p>\n
    So it looks like:<\/p>\n
    \"automatic-remove\"<\/a><\/p>\n
    Remove Manually Installed Kernels:<\/b><\/p>\n
    If you install latest kernels from Kernel PPA<\/a>, or build your own kernels with patches, a “purge-old-kernels” script is the best and the easiest way to remove old kernels.<\/p>\n
    1. The script is maintained in byobu package, so first install it via:<\/p>\n
    sudo apt install byobu<\/pre>\n
    2. Then run the script regularly to remove old kernels:<\/p>\n
    sudo purge-old-kernels<\/pre>\n
    \"purge-old-kernel-script\"<\/a><\/p>\n
    Remove Old Kernels via DPKG<\/b><\/p>\n
    If your \/boot partition has already full while doing an upgrade or package install, and apt<\/code> (the script above uses apt)<\/i> can’t remove packages due to broken dependency, here you can manually find out the old kernel packages and remove them via DPKG:<\/p>\n
    1.<\/b> Run command to check out current kernel and DON’T REMOVE it:<\/p>\n
    uname -r<\/pre>\n
    2.<\/b> List all kernels excluding the current booted:<\/p>\n
    dpkg -l | tail -n +6 | grep -E 'linux-image-[0-9]+' | grep -Fv $(uname -r)<\/pre>\n
    Example output:<\/p>\n
    rc  linux-image-4.4.0-15-generic<\/span>               4.4.0-15.31                                         amd64        Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP\nii  linux-image-4.4.0-18-generic<\/span>               4.4.0-18.34                                         amd64        Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP\nrc  linux-image-4.6.0-040600rc3-generic<\/span>        4.6.0-040600rc3.201604120934                        amd64        Linux kernel image for version 4.6.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP<\/pre>\n
    There will be three status in the listed kernel images:<\/p>\n
      \n
    • rc<\/b>: means it has already been removed.<\/li>\n
    • ii<\/b>: means installed, eligible for removal.<\/li>\n
    • iU<\/b>: DON’T REMOVE. It means not installed, but queued for install in apt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      3. Remove old kernel images in status ii<\/span>, it’s “linux-image-4.4.0-18-generic” in the example above:<\/p>\n
      sudo dpkg --purge linux-image-4.4.0-18-generic<\/span><\/pre>\n
      If the command fails, remove the dependency packages that the output tells you via sudo dpkg --purge PACKAGE<\/code>.<\/p>\n
      And also try to remove the respective header and common header packages (Don’t worry if the command fails):<\/p>\n
      sudo dpkg --purge linux-image-4.4.0-18<\/span>-header linux-image-4.4.0-18<\/span><\/pre>\n
      Finally you may fix the apt broken dependency via command:<\/p>\n
      sudo apt -f install<\/pre>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      For LVM, encrypted, or limited-storage systems, you need to regularly remove old kernels to prevent your computer (\/boot partition) from running out of storage space. Removing old kernels is easy. You can do it manually, or set unattended-upgrades to do it automatically. For details, open terminal from App Launcher or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut keys, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[515],"class_list":["post-5864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-howtos","tag-remove-old-kernels-ubuntu"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}