Q. I have multiple versions installed and I need to save disk space. I am using Cent OS Linux. How can I delete or remove a Linux kernel from my Linux distribution ?
A. Linux Kernel and related files are stored in following locations:=>/boot- Stores actual kernel and related file such system man and initrd images,
=>/etcor/boot/grub- Stores grub.conf file (most distro use /boot/grub these days).
=>/iib/modules/KERNEL-VERSION/*- Linux device drivers (modules)
If kernel is installed using binary package system such as rpm, yum, up2date, apt-get etc you can remove with following commands:
Rpm based distro – Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora Core/Suse Linux
First find out all installed kernel version with following command:# rpm -qa | grep kernel-smpor# rpm -qa | grep kernelOutput:
kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.ELkernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.3.ELkernel-smp-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL
I’ve total 3 different kernel installed. To remove kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.EL type command:# rpm -e kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.ELOR# rpm -vv -e kernel-smp-2.6.9-42.EL
.deb based distro – Debian or Ubuntu Linux
Again find out all installed kernel version:$ dpkg --list | grep kernel-imageOutput:
ii kernel-image-2.4.27-2-386 2.4.27-10sarge1 Linux kernel image for version 2.4.27 on 386ii kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686 2.6.8-16sarge1 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.8 on PPro
Now remove kernel-image-2.4.27-2-386 with apt-get command itself:# apt-get remove kernel-image-2.4.27-2-386OR$ sudo apt-get remove kernel-image-2.4.27-2-386
If you have custom compiled kernel you need to remove following files/dirs:
/boot/vmlinuz*KERNEL-VERSION*/boot/initrd*KERNEL-VERSION*/boot/System-map*KERNEL-VERSION*/boot/config-*KERNEL-VERSION*/lib/modules/*KERNEL-VERSION*/Update grub configuration file /etc/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst to point to correct kernel version.
在Ubuntu下：
sudo rm -rf /lib/modules/*KERNEL-VERSION*sudo rm -rf /usr/src/linux-headers-*KERNEL-VERSION*sudo rm /boot/*KERNEL-VERSION*sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-headers-*KERNEL-VERSION*
update-grub2更新grub即可
Caution:Removing working kernel may result into unstable / non- bootable Linux server system.
原始地址：http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/debian-redhat-linux-delete-kernel-command/
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