icewolf

I just installed Redhat 9 and updated the kernel. I'm yet not that familiar w/ the Linux OS in general, and I'm still playing around w/ it. Anyway, how do you delete an old kernel and have it not show up on the GRUB menu? I know that you're supposed to keep an old one for backup, but I'm just a little short on hard drive space right now (I only have a 30 GB hard drive, and I'm running a duel boot w/ XP and Linux). Thanks, if anyone can help.

batty_professor

I myself have never updated a kernel in any of my systems. I know if I were to attempt such, rather than have two kernels I would update the system kernel. Instead of using rpm-i use rpm-u to update. Also the kernel rpm is maybe 100 mb or so, I don't see, if you already have it installed, that there's so much to gain. or did you actually make it a second Linux installation? If you look at your drive partitions, are there two root partitions?

Two Linux root partitions that is.

icewolf

I'm pretty sure that I only have one Linux root partition.

What I did was, once I loaded up RedHat, I ran up2date and downloaded a newer version of the RedHat kernel. GRUB now lists three options when I boot up, which are RedHat 9 (2.4.22-31.9), and RedHat 9 (2.4.20-8), and DOS.

Would I be advised to get rid of the older kernel if I really want to save hard drive space? If so, how? Thanks!

Skie

The files required by the kernel only take about 3 - 4MB of space. Deleteing them isn't going to help you very much. However, if you wish to delete the files anyway, here's what you should do.

If you haven't rebooted since your last kernel update, do so now, BEFORE you do anything. Also, keep in mind that if you make a mistake with this, you run the risk of your computer no longer booting up. Make sure you have a bootable CD/Floppy to use for emergency purposes. Most update tools that are provided by the company which makes the distro will usually delete the old kernels for you as well as properly update your GRUB config. If this is the case, then you can ignore everything.

Open a Terminal window and use "su" to become root. Then type "cd /boot". Then use "ls" to see what files are in this directory. Also, use "uname -a" which will tell you which kernel you're currently using.

In my case, this is what I have:

This tells me my kernel is "2.6.5-7.111.19-default". In my /boot, i have the following files:

These are the files that are currently being used. Any others can be deleted. If you want to be safe, you can move or rename these files. After rebooting, if everything still works, you can then delete them. You'll know that you messed up when the computer doesn't boot into linux.

To edit your GRUB config, type "cd /boot/grub". In here, you'll find a file called menu.lst (that's a lowercase L, not a number 1). Use your favorite text editor to edit this file. I'll show you how to do it using PICO. Please make a backup of this file before you make changes. If you screw up this file, you run the risk of not being able to boot to both windows or linux.

Type "pico menu.lst". Locate the group of lines that referr to the old kernel. Just use the DEL key to delete each line. I'm not sure of how to delete a whole line at a time in PICO as I don't use it often, but it's the easier command line text editor, so we'll use this. Once you've deleted the lines in question, hit the following key combo's: CTRL+O and then CTRL+X. This will save your changes, then exit.

After this, reboot to make sure you've done everything properly. As long as you can boot up, you're fine.

icewolf

That was very helpful! Thank you so much!!!