Why does OpenSUSE Leap force you to drag along so many kernels

English Hardware
21

OK, never mind, let’s close this as I seem to be unable to get myself understood.

Please just note that I do not have two kernels, and I don’t need two kernels. I have only one bootable kernel, which is the 5.14.21-150500.55.44. I also accept whatever package management system is chosen by the distribution developpers, I don’t challenge that at all neither.

I only say that as soon as I install NVidia and/or VirtualBox into OpenSUSE LEAP, some portions from older and already superseeded kernel versions get pulled into my system, and that does not seem to be the case anywhere else.

T.

22

That is why openSUSE do so.

And the Maintainer of Nvidia or Virtualbox use the OSS Kernel to compile and build.

I use also the updates directory of the OSS kernel to build my kmp’s.
The rest will be done automatically by installing a new kernel.

PS:
You can also delete those nvidia or virtualbox rpms and install nvidia the hard way.
Even with virtualbox.

23

I think I got it and IIUC it’s simply the dependency of the Nvidia package that prevents some older kernel “parts” from being removed:
I am keeping my two kernels, but never mind, there’s the kernel-default-devel one step older:

pluto:~ # LANG=C zypper se -si kernel-default
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name                    | Type    | Version                | Arch   | Repository
---+-------------------------+---------+------------------------+--------+------------------
i+ | kernel-default          | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.44.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i+ | kernel-default          | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.39.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i+ | kernel-default-devel    | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.44.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i+ | kernel-default-devel    | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.39.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i+ | kernel-default-devel    | package | 5.14.21-150500.53.2    | x86_64 | repo-oss (15.5)
i  | kernel-default-extra    | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.44.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i  | kernel-default-extra    | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.39.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i  | kernel-default-optional | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.44.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
i  | kernel-default-optional | package | 5.14.21-150500.55.39.1 | x86_64 | update-sle (15.5)
pluto:~ #

Now compare the installed kernel versions with the required version of kernel-default-devel:

pluto:~ # LANG=C rpm -q --requires nvidia-gfxG04-kmp-default-390.157_k5.14.21_150500.53-lp155.37.1.x86_64 | grep kernel-default
kernel-default
kernel-default-devel = 5.14.21-150500.53
pluto:~ #

If you want to get rid of it you may have to get rid of the Nvidia driver or ask the packagers of the proprietory Nvidia driver.

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