Uninstalling a redundant (old) Linux kernel

Assumption: you have at least two kernel versions installed on your system. You (now) wish to remove one of them - most likely the older version. It's also assumed that you are using the rpm package management utility. Note that if you are familiar with your Linux distribution, it should be quite easy to adapt these instructions to your system whether you are using dpkg (Debian) or tar.

In general the steps you need to take are:
1. Remove the kernel's entry/section from the /etc/lilo.conf file
2. Rerun the lilo command
3. Uninstall the old kernel's package from your system.

"Detailed" instructions:
1.  edit /etc/lilo.conf and remove the section for the "offensive" kernel.
     (Make sure your system is not set to boot this kernel by default. 
      Otherwise, make sure you change the default kernel to boot from 
      to the kernel you intend to leave running.)

2. Reinstall the boot loader: /sbin/lilo
PLEASE, this step SHOULD NOT GIVE ANY ERROR! DO NOT IGNORE ANY ERROR(S) YOU GET! If lilo installs OK, you should get something like: 

added linux* 
added linux20* 
(etc)

Close observation of the lilo reinstallation step above should reveal that the kernel has indeed been removed from the bootloader's configuration. i.e., you should not see its "label" in the output of the lilo command above.

3. Uninstall the kernel package by:
rpm -e package-name
(e.g.)
rpm -e kernel-2.4.2     (or whatever your kernel package is called)

4. Reboot the system. When it comes back up, issue "uname -a" to check the kernel version

5. Good luck! :-)

24/07/2004 

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