My system has been upgraded from 11.4 to 12.3. The root directory is running out of space (of 20G, 1.5 remains). In another post there was mention of deleting outdated kernels. Before I overdo it - I’m using the desktop kernel
but the devel, xen, and default kernels also seem to be installed. Just how much of this can be safely removed?
Your first step is to run the command:
uname -a
That’s to find out which kernel you are currently running. It should be 3.7.10.1.32.1 (maybe the final “.1” is not in the name given)
Make sure that you do not delete the kernel that you are currently running.
You can delete kernel-desktop, kernel-source, kernel-desktop-devel, kernel-devel, kernel-syms from each of the versions that you want to delete. There are some dependencies between them, so if you don’t delete all variations, you may run into conflicts.
Also search for packages with “kmp” as part of the name. You may have to also delete those corresponding to the kernel versions that you delete. Otherwise you will finish up in dependency hell.
The biggest space saving will come from deleting kernel-source. So maybe start with that.
On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:16:01 +0000, n hand wrote:
> devel, xen, and default kernels also seem to be installed. Just how much
> of this can be safely removed?
“devel” isn’t a kernel, it’s used for kernel development. You might
need it, depending on what other software you’re using.
xen and default, though, you shouldn’t need, if you’re using the desktop
kernel.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
running uname -a returned
Linux linux-wcaf.site 3.7.10-1.32-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu May 8 00:09:34 UTC 2014 (5978d00) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
which sounds a little interesting
So, I’m also safe in deleting the “really old” 2.6.37?
(I get nervous when I see red Xs next to things)
Are you using VirtualBox or some other Virtual Machine software? If you are then that would explain why you have some of those kernel dependencies, so be very very careful and don’t delete anything yet!
no - I’m not running any virtual machines.
On 2014-06-03 23:46, n hand wrote:
> So, I’m also safe in deleting the “really old” 2.6.37?
Yep.
But removing kernel do not save that much space in root.
You might need to get a look on “/usr/src/”, “/lib/modules/”, it is
typical for cruft to stay there.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
I’m down to 4 versions of each kernel & up to 4.4G free on root
“/usr/src/” only holds 2.2G
I don’t seem to have a “/lib/modules/” folder but “/lib/module-init-tools/” and “/lib/modules-load.d/” together only hold about 20K
I think I’ll see how things run before I delete any more.
thanks
On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:56:02 +0000, consused wrote:
> Are you using VirtualBox or some other Virtual Machine software? If you
> are then that would explain why you have some of those kernel
> dependencies, so be very very careful and don’t delete anything yet!
VirtualBox (at least) doesn’t care about anything other than -desktop or -
default being installed. Xen would care about the -xen being used, but
it would also be the running kernel if Xen were in use.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On 2014-06-04 00:46, n hand wrote:
> I’m down to 4 versions of each kernel & up to 4.4G free on root
> “/usr/src/” only holds 2.2G
Double than mine.
> I don’t seem to have a “/lib/modules/” folder but
You have to.
> “/lib/module-init-tools/” and “/lib/modules-load.d/” together only hold
> about 20K
Those two I have not seen.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
The full PUEL version of Oracle’s VirtualBox (downloaded from their repos) requires rpm’s: kernel-source, kernel-syms, kernel-desktop-devel, gcc, make. IIRC kernel-devel, kernel-default-devel, and kernel-xen-devel also get pulled in as dependencies. It won’t actually work until the VirtualBox kernel module (vboxdrv) is compiled (especially after a kernel update).
On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 01:16:01 +0000, consused wrote:
> hendersj;2647321 Wrote:
>> On Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:56:02 +0000, consused wrote:
>>
>> > Are you using VirtualBox or some other Virtual Machine software? If
>> you
>> > are then that would explain why you have some of those kernel
>> > dependencies, so be very very careful and don’t delete anything yet!
>>
>> VirtualBox (at least) doesn’t care about anything other than -desktop
>> or -
>> default being installed. Xen would care about the -xen being used, but
>> it would also be the running kernel if Xen were in use.
>>
> The full PUEL version of Oracle’s VirtualBox (downloaded from their
> repos) requires rpm’s: kernel-source, kernel-syms, kernel-desktop-devel,
> gcc, make. IIRC kernel-devel, kernel-default-devel, and kernel-xen-devel
> also get pulled in as dependencies. It won’t actually work until the
> VirtualBox kernel module (vboxdrv) is compiled (especially after a
> kernel update).
True, which is one reason I use the Virtualization repo instead. The
kernel modules are pre-built, and there isn’t a lot of extra stuff needed
to get it to work. 
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
That’s all good, and another one of those bolt-ons to be discovered. My thoughts were originally focused on “20G, 1.5 remains”. If VBox had been in use, just one dynamic VDI of 6-8GB defaulting into /home on a root partition of 20GB would dramatically fill it. Of course one can avoid that with configuration changes.
It has to be more than a few extra kernels or the packages I listed.
On 2014-06-04 13:16, consused wrote:
> It has to be more than a few extra kernels or the packages I listed.
Yes, absolutely.
I have installs with a single 9 GiB partition, home included.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 11:16:02 +0000, consused wrote:
> It has to be more than a few extra kernels or the packages I listed.
Agreed.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
interesting…
I just booted up the machine to see how it was working. It now reports 5.9G free on /
also interesting - yesterday there wasn’t a /lib/modules/ directory - today there is & the other 2 are gone.
only “side effect” so far - my mouse & Wacom Bamboo tablet are being flaky (making it hard to get much done) - very odd
On 2014-06-04 20:36, n hand wrote:
> I just booted up the machine to see how it was working. It now reports
> 5.9G free on /
Much better!
> also interesting - yesterday there wasn’t a /lib/modules/ directory -
> today there is & the other 2 are gone.
Were you looking at the hard disk, or at the ram disk of a rescue CD? :-?
> only “side effect” so far - my mouse & Wacom Bamboo tablet are being
> flaky (making it hard to get much done) - very odd
You did an upgrade from 11.4 to 12.3, right? How did you do it?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
I’ve been looking at the hard disk (I think) since I didn’t use/need a rescue CD. I’m now down to 2 kernel versions but still have Xen, desktop, & default installed. I may delete some of those tomorrow.
I did the upgrade a year ago (just before 13 was released) “over the wire” since the installation program on the CD didn’t seem to like my hardware (HP Pavilion P6000). Everything had been working fine until the last few days. Now the Wacom tablet is acting up & I don’t know whether to blame the operating system or the cat (since he walks across it frequently). I installed new Wacom drivers a little while ago & shut off the touchpad daemon (which was giving a Synaptic error) so we’ll see…
On 2014-06-05 00:56, n hand wrote:
> I did the upgrade a year ago (just before 13 was released) “over the
> wire” since the installation program on the CD didn’t seem to like my
> hardware (HP Pavilion P6000).
Does this mean you used “zypper dup”?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Looking at “/boot”, I see
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 745347 May 12 12:51 /boot/symtypes-3.11.10-11-default.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 746580 May 12 10:28 /boot/symtypes-3.11.10-11-desktop.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 722008 May 12 09:59 /boot/symtypes-3.11.10-11-xen.gz
However, I do not have xen or default kernels installed. Those files are part dependencies of the kernel-devel package, which is probably required by something else you have installed. They are relatively small.
If that’s all you have, then not a problem. If you have a file “/boot/vmlinux-3.11.10-7-xen.gz”, then you may have an unneeded kernel.