Multiple Boot Options

[Kris Jacyna]

Hello everyone,
I'm fairly new to fedora and even linux in fact. I just have a quick question to ask. After I perform a 'yum update' or any updates involving the kernel, when I reboot my machine I get multiple fedora boot options e.g.

Fedora (<newer_version_number>)
Fedora (<older_version_number>)
... etc

Now I understand that this is due to the kernel being updated right? (please correct me if I'm wrong here)
So what should I do in this case? is there a way to 'clean up' the previous versions?
Do I always want to keep the most up-to-date one?
Do I just remove the old entries from the grub.conf file?

Any help or explanation is much appreciated.
Thank in advance,

kj

[glennzo]

This is normal behavior. The old kernel is kept around in case the new one is problematic. If it is you can fall back on the older kernel. Once you've decided that the new kernel is working as expected you can remove the old one if you wish. It doesn't hurt to keep it around though. Easiest thing to do is remove the reference to it in the boot menu. Open /boot/grub/menu.lst and remove the complete stanza, for example.

title Fedora 12 (2.6.31.12-174.2.3.fc12.i686.PAE)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-174.2.3.fc12.i686.PAE ro root=UUID=d41b604b-ad25-4374-b986-6cc3a4d0eb04 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.31.12-174.2.3.fc12.i686.PAE.img

Remove this whole stanza and you won't see it any more. Just make sure that you remove the correct one. You can also restrict the number of kernels installed / removed by editing the file /etc/yum.conf. There is a line in the file that reads installonly_limit=x, where x is a number like 2 or 3. The number represents the number of kernels that will be kept around.

[Kris Jacyna]

Thank you very much for the help glennzo

[madhavdiwan]

you should not have to do anything .. every time you run and update and if it updtaes a new kernel.. it will make that kerenl and its lines default after a few interations it will actually remove the old est kernels and thier lines from the config file for you.

best thing to do .. just leave it alone.. might be a good idea to know how it works though , suggest you read up on the boot process