Kernels everywhere!

Hello good people of OpenMandriva Forums

  • OpenMandriva Lx version:
    Operating System: OpenMandriva Cooker
    KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.4
    KDE Frameworks Version: 6.12.0
    Qt Version: 6.9.0
    Kernel Version: 6.14.0-server-gcc-3omv2590 (64-bit)
    Graphics Platform: Wayland
    Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 5800U with Radeon Graphics
    Memory: 15.0 GiB of RAM
    Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
    Manufacturer: HP
    Product Name: HP ENVY x360 Convertible 13-ay1xxx
    System Version: Type1ProductConfigId

  • Desktop environment (KDE, LXQT…):
    KDE Plasma 6

  • Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant):

How to rationalize the number of kernels that are installed by OMV? I have many kernel packages installed and the boot partition fills up after each upgrade. What to do? I have to keep deleting older packages but I am not sure if that is the right approach. Should I upgrade kernels less often then?

Advise is appreciated. Thanks in advance

  • Relevant informations (hardware involved, software version, logs or output…):

how are you upgrading openmandriva ? I think you’re supposed to use sudo dnf --allowerasing distro-sync everytime I upgrade the old kernel gets deleted

I suspect related to Installed both desktop and server kernels - Can I remove one?

This is what command ‘more /etc/dnf/dnf.conf’ gives:

alangea@alangea-systemproductname dnf]$ more dnf.conf
# see `man dnf.conf` for defaults and possible options


*[main]*
*gpgcheck=True*
*installonly_limit=3*
*clean_requirements_on_remove=True*
*best=False*
*skip_if_unavailable=True*
*[alangea@alangea-systemproductname dnf]$*

Just set installonly_limit= “whatever”
My advice is minimum 2, maximum 3

uname -r gives the running kernel name

The command hostnamectl gives complete information about the running kernel

That means if you installed a version of OMLx that comes with, for example, kernel-desktop you should never have more than 3 different versions of kernel-desktop. When a new kernel-desktop is installed and there are already 3 of them then dnf wlll remove the oldest numerical version.

This does not apply to any other kernel versions so if user installs say kernel-server or kernel-rc-desktop then dnf dsync will update that and will never remove any of the older versions of those user installed kernel versions. As far as I know all Desktop versions of OMLx come with kernel-desktop by default. I know this is true for Plasma, and LXQt versions.

I hope I explained this well, the terminology is tricky just in English and I know we have many users for whom English is not the primary language.

There was an upgrade to ROME (rolling) in the last few months that, by mistake, installed some other kernels. Those can and probably should be removed. I removed them from my ROME systems.

I upgrade the system using sudo dnf --refresh distro-sync

Thanks

Thank @ben79 @rugyada @alangea for your very useful tips.

rpm -qa|grep kernel yields the following:

lib64absl_kernel_timeout_internal-20250127.1-1.x86_64
kernel-firmware-extra-20250324-1.noarch
kernel-firmware-20250324-1.noarch
virtualbox-kernel-module-sources-7.1.6-1.x86_64
virtualbox-guest-kernel-module-sources-7.1.6-1.x86_64
kernel-server-gcc-6.14.0-3.x86_64
kernel-server-6.14.0-3.x86_64
kernel-desktop-gcc-6.14.0-3.x86_64
kernel-rc-desktop-6.14.0-0.rc7.2.x86_64
kernel-rc-desktop-devel-6.14.0-0.rc7.2.x86_64
kernel-headers-6.13.10-1.x86_64
kernel-server-gcc-6.13.10-1.x86_64
kernel-server-6.13.10-1.x86_64
kernel-desktop-gcc-6.13.10-1.x86_64

If I do uname -r I realize I am using the server kernel 6.14.0-server-gcc-3omv2590. When and how this happened I don’t know. Whether I have installed them or whether OpenMandriva has installed them I don’t know.

I will restrict the number of kernels by adjusting dnf.conf but what I want to know is the following:

  1. Why is there a gcc version and a non-gcc version? What is the difference?
  2. Why is there an rc-desktop version and non-rc-desktop version?
  3. If I want to switch to a desktop kernel by default what changes do I make to my system?

Thanks in advance for your help

gcc kernel is compiled with gcc, non-gcc is compiled with clang. The latter is OM default.

Common users can remove the rc version, unless they really need it for some reason (test if your hw will be supported or such)

The last kernel you booted is selected by default in grub for the next boots.

.##.
The reason why you have all these kernel versions is mentioned in the topic link here above.

Do:
sudo dnf remove hfsutils
if it’s still there.

You can remove all the gcc-* kernels if you wish. And probably the rc.
I’d keep the kernel-server (not gcc) available just in case, because some users reported that it works better under certain circumstances.

If I do uname -r I realize I am using the server kernel 6.14.0-server-gcc-3omv2590

So in order to be able to remove this gcc one, at the grub screen you select
Advanced options > kernel-server-6.13.10
otherwise of course you cannot remove the kernel in use.
(there should be also the regular kernel-desktop (clang compiled) but I don’t see it in your list)


^^
Notice in this screenshot published as an example I have just one kernel installed, you may need to scroll down the list with the arrow-down key

After you are done with some spring cleaning we’ll see the rest if you so wish :wink:

Thank you for your very detailed and quick response. I will remove the gcc kernels and also the server kernels because there are far too many of them. I think what happened was as @ben79 mentioned, at some stage during an upgrade extra kernels got installed and since they have been there and the system has been upgrading them with each dsync.

Thanks again. I think this whole thread is very useful

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