I've accumulated a few old versions of Linux kernels in my /boot directory as a result of kernel upgrades via the RedHat upgrade agent. I'm now out of room in that partition. What should I do to get rid of the old unused ones? If left to my own devices, I would:

* delete any files in /boot with numbers corresponding to unwanted versions, and

* update /sbin/lilo.conf to omit references to the now-deleted versions

but I'm a little nervous about monkeying around in the /boot partition. Any advice?

Thanks,
Jim

Based on my experience, which is admittedly somewhat limited, you should be able to just delete those kernel images. However, if you want to be careful about it, I'd do one of two things before deleting them outright:

1) Rename the "suspect" kernel images
2) Move the images to another directory in your filesystem

Then go and modify lilo.conf. Again, if you want to be extra careful, first comment-out lines before deleting them, and make sure you can still boot.

I use redHat 8, and there are also System.map files and initrd images linked with specific kernel versions. If you have those, you can get rid of them as well.

Thanks! I poked around a bit more, and found this: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=29807

Since kernel updates in RedHat are implemented as RPM packages, you can use RPM to uninstall unwanted ones:

rpm -qa | grep kernel

will show you all the kernel packages, and you can then use "rpm -e <name>" to remove the unwanted ones. This gets all the related files out of /boot and who knows where else, and even edits /etc/lilo.conf to remove the references.

Jim

Definitely, if you can identify the old kernels. Also rm -rf /lib/modules/<old-version>/ if you want to clean up the corresponding kernel modules stored under the root partition. I'd keep one old version, so I can boot it if I mess up the running kernel and shoot myself in the foot.