Removing unwanted kernels

[Paul Howarth]

Gustavo Seabra wrote:
> I have a question here. My system, for example, has kernel *and*
> kernel-smp for each kernel release. However, I've never seen it use
> the regular one, only the smp. So, is there *any* good reason to keep
> the regular (not -smp) kernel around? or is it safe to remove those
> too?
> 
> For example, I have:
> 
>>rpm -qa | grep kernel-2 ; rpm -qa | grep kernel-sm
> 
> kernel-2.6.10-1.766_FC3
> kernel-2.6.10-1.770_FC3
> kernel-smp-2.6.10-1.770_FC3
> kernel-smp-2.6.10-1.766_FC3
> 
>>uname -r
> 
> 2.6.10-1.770_FC3smp
> 
> So, is there a reason to keep: kernel-2.6.10-1.766_FC3 and
> kernel-2.6.10-1.770_FC3 ?
> (Of course, I keep the kernel-smp-2.6.10-1.766_FC3. )

Sometimes there are problems that affect only SMP kernels. So it's handy 
to be able to boot up using a uniprocessor kernel on SMP machines, even 
if only to install an older SMP kernel that didn't exhibit the problem 
(or perhaps to try to help debug the problem). Normally you wouldn't 
delete an old kernel until you were sure you were happy with the new 
one, but having the uniprocessor version there as a backup is a nice 
safety net.

Paul.