This is not a duplicate as suggested above - for why, see the text below.
I have the strange situation that an "old" kernel is running (in fact it is the OLDEST):
uname -r
> 4.13.0-43-generic
Using a command to show available kernels I only see NEWER kernels(!):
sudo dpkg --list 'linux-image*'|awk '{ if ($1=="ii") print $2}'|grep -v `uname -r`
linux-image-4.13.0-45-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-24-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-29-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-30-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-32-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-33-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-34-generic
linux-image-extra-4.13.0-45-generic
It looks as if the system never rebooted to "get to the new kernels" - I see for example that in the root dir:
ls -al
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Sep 11 06:02 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-34-generic
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Sep 11 06:02 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-4.15.0-33-generic
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Sep 11 06:02 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-34-generic
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Sep 11 06:02 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-33-generic
which kind of suggests this to me (I'm not an ubuntu guru)...
This is not a duplicate question but a new question because I have no old kernels to delete. Other answers detail deleting old kernels with version numbers less than the current kernel.
The running kernel is the oldest listed. I was worried about deleting kernels newer than the current kernel - between the current kernel and the newest and the kernel that was wanting to be installed - but blocked because of 100% full boot partition.
All answers using "apt" do not work when the boot partition is 100% full so please ignore them :)
From my original question: So I'm tempted to reboot the machine. But is this dangerous - since the boot partition is 100% full. "Normally" I'd delete old kernels etc. to free up space. What's the best/safest way to proceed here?
I ask because it seems I "should" make some space (see Will ubuntu boot if the /boot partition is full?)... but how in this particular case?
THIS IS HOW I SOLVED the problem:
In the end as apt autoremove
etc. do not work in this situation I followed the hints given here:https://gist.github.com/ipbastola/2760cfc28be62a5ee10036851c654600
(See: "Case II: Can't Use apt i.e. /boot is 100% full")
In my case I deleted a newer kernel by hand to release space in /boot
in order to be able to proceed:
cd /boot
ls *4.13.0-45*
rm -rf *4.13.0-45*
df -h
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo update-grub
more grub/grub.cfg
reboot
df -h
shows boot no longer 100% full
With more grub/grub.cfg
you can check if the system is catering for the correct kernels (i.e. whether the update grub
worked well)
sudo apt autoremove
which should remove older kernels, leave the current running kernel and the latest update. This will free space, but not fix the booting into the old kernel problem.