Script to remove old kernels

[InkyDinky]

Originally posted here:http://www.go2linux.org/clean-linux-...ages-grub-menu by Deven
Just too damn good not to share. Especially seeing as how when I attempted to manually remove the old kernels I ended up spending a few hours getting a kernel back on after deleting all of them.

#/bin/bash
ls /boot/ | grep vmlinuz | sed 's@vmlinuz-@linux-image-@g' | grep -v `uname -r` > /tmp/kernelList
for I in `cat /tmp/kernelList`
do
aptitude remove $I
done
rm -f /tmp/kernelList 
update-grub #not sure if needed

save as cleanKernels.sh
Execute as root or chmod 755 it.

sudo bash cleanKernels.sh

Yippee you just freed up some disk space!

[pixnaps]

Very cool. Is there any easy way to modify it so that it also retains your next most recent kernel (in addition to your current one) as backup, and only removes kernels from the third one onwards?

[marin123]

sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

you can edit grub menu, change default os, change background picture etc...

[InkyDinky]

I believe this will get the job done for you.
It is UNTESTED since I cleaned out my extra kernels but I'm pretty sure that it works keeping the last entry in the /tmp/kernelList file. This last entry should be the latest due to alphanumeric reporting of ls.

#!/bin/bash
counter=1
ls /boot/ | grep vmlinuz | sed 's@vmlinuz-@linux-image-@g' | grep -v `uname -r ` > /tmp/kernelList
numberOfExtraKernels=`wc -l /tmp/kernelList`
for l in `cat /tmp/kernelList`
do
    if [ $counter -lt $numberOfExtraKernels ]
    then 
        aptitude remove $l
        let "counter +=1"
    fi
done
rm -f /tmp/kernelList
updage-grub

[oldfred]

Have not tried it. but minor typo.

updage-grub
s/b
update-grub

[oldfred]

I do not know bash so I had to do a little research.

This worked for me, I had to add the echo to know what was what and remove the file name from the wc command.

#!/bin/bash
counter=2
ls /boot/ | grep vmlinuz | sed 's@vmlinuz-@linux-image-@g' | grep -v `uname -r ` > /tmp/kernelList
numberOfExtraKernels=`wc -l /tmp/kernelList | awk '{print $1}'`
for l in `cat /tmp/kernelList`
do
    if [ "$counter" -lt "$numberOfExtraKernels" ]
    echo "$l", "$counter", "$numberOfExtraKernels"
    then 
        aptitude remove $l
        let "counter +=1"
    fi
done
rm -f /tmp/kernelList
update-grub

When I ran it with counter =1 it deleted all but 1, so now I cannot test with counter =2.

[jawilljr]

One liner below to remove all but the latest kernel:

dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d' | xargs -p sudo apt-get -y purge

Jerry

[HunterZ]

sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

you can edit grub menu, change default os, change background picture etc...

No such package in the normal Ubuntu repos. What PPA did you get it from?

[marin123]

No such package in the normal Ubuntu repos. What PPA did you get it from?

https://launchpad.net/~danielrichter...rub-customizer

you have instructions on this link...

[ClintEgon]

#! /bin/sh

oldKernelsList=$(ls /boot/ | grep vmlinuz  | grep -v `uname -r` | sed 's/vmlinuz-\(.*\)\(-.*\)$/linux-image-\1\2\nlinux-tools-\1\nlinux-headers-\1\2\nlinux-headers-\1\n/g') && aptitude remove ${oldKernelsList} && update-grub

bye