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I have checked my installed kernels

www-data@May:~$ dpkg -l linux-image-\* | grep ^ii
ii  linux-image-3.13.0-57-generic       3.13.0-57.95                        amd64        Linux kernel image for version 3.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-3.13.0-61-generic       3.13.0-61.100                       amd64        Linux kernel image for version 3.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-extra-3.13.0-57-generic 3.13.0-57.95                        amd64        Linux kernel extra modules for version 3.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-extra-3.13.0-61-generic 3.13.0-61.100                       amd64        Linux kernel extra modules for version 3.13.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-generic                 3.13.0.61.68                        amd64        Generic Linux kernel image

I have checked my boot

www-data@May:~$ ls /boot/
System.map-3.13.0-57-generic  grub              memtest86+.elf
System.map-3.13.0-61-generic  initrd.img-3.13.0-55-generic  memtest86+_multiboot.bin
abi-3.13.0-57-generic         initrd.img-3.13.0-57-generic  vmlinuz-3.13.0-57-generic
abi-3.13.0-61-generic         initrd.img-3.13.0-61-generic  vmlinuz-3.13.0-61-generic
config-3.13.0-57-generic      lost+found
config-3.13.0-61-generic      memtest86+.bin

The above is what I have AFTER I have run sudo apt-get autoremove

I continue to have > 90% of usage of boot.

Please advise.

Kim Stacks
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1 Answers1

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There are many other kernel-specific packages. You should sudo apt-get remove the obsolete ones. Here is how I found my obsolete packages: 

# first, use the current kernel version (DO NOT REMOVE YOUR CURRENT KERNEL)  
# to get a list of installed packages with the same version number.
dpkg -l | fgrep $(uname -r | sed -e 's/-generic//') | egrep '^ii'  

# Then, inspecting the output, and manually selecting non-version  
# substrings, construct a regular expression for egrep. I got:
dpkg -l | egrep 'linux-tools-|linux-source-|linux-libc-dev|linux-image-|linux-headers-'| egrep -v $(uname -r | sed -e 's/-generic//')

This produces a list of candidates for sudo apt-get remove. Eliminate from this list your current kernel and all of its like-versioned kin (I did that in the last egrep) AND the previous N versions. Start with N=3, use N=2 with caution, and try to avoid the N=1 case.

DO NOT REMOVE YOUR CURRENT KERNEL

waltinator
  • 36,399
  • why wouldn't sudo apt-get autoremove remove the obsolete kernels? – Kim Stacks Aug 13 '15 at 07:54
  • Because autoremove is documented as "autoremove is used to remove packages that were automatically installed to satisfy dependencies for other packages and are now no longer needed." Old kernels do not meet that criterion. Read man apt-get – waltinator Aug 13 '15 at 13:09