Many old nvidia packages to be deleted or retained?

English Multimedia
1

Cleaning up old kernels and such to free “/” space that is getting full. Noted many nvidia directories in directory as shown below. I am assuming I can delete all but last couple but might there be a reason to keep these?

thanks, tom kosvic

mydesktop:/usr/src/kernel-modules # l
total 108
drwxr-xr-x. 27 root root 4096 Aug 28 13:58 ./
drwxr-xr-x. 19 root root 4096 Sep 17 08:19 ../
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 May 25  2021 nvidia-460.73.01-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 May 14  2021 nvidia-460.73.01-preempt/
drwxr-xr-x.  7 root root 4096 Aug 11  2021 nvidia-460.80-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Aug 27  2022 nvidia-470.129.06-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Oct  3  2021 nvidia-470.57.02-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Jan 10  2022 nvidia-470.74-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Jun  7  2022 nvidia-470.94-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Sep 10  2024 nvidia-550.100-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Oct  2  2024 nvidia-550.107.02-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Oct 31  2024 nvidia-550.120-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Nov 29  2024 nvidia-550.127.05-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Jan 26  2025 nvidia-550.135-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Jan 31  2025 nvidia-550.144.03-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Jul 16  2024 nvidia-550.90.07-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Mar 20  2025 nvidia-570.124.04-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Oct 28  2025 nvidia-570.133.07-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Apr 21  2025 nvidia-570.144-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Mar  1  2025 nvidia-570.86.16-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Dec 13  2025 nvidia-580.105.08-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Jan 14  2026 nvidia-580.119.02-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Feb 20  2026 nvidia-580.126.09-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Mar 10  2026 nvidia-580.126.18-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  8 root root 4096 Sep 15 08:57 nvidia-580.178.04-default/
drwxr-xr-x.  8 root root 4096 Sep 15 08:55 nvidia-580.178.04-longterm/
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root 4096 Nov 10  2025 nvidia-580.95.05-default/
mydesktop:/usr/src/kernel-modules #
2

Unfortunately that is a known side effect of the Nvidia kmp’s rebuilding for any new kernel and not cleaning up upon kernel removal.
Keep those for the kernels currently installed and remove all others; take note to repeat the operation 2-3 times a year afterwards.

1 Like