how to dwindle down the number of kernels in menu.lst to two

[NoOp]

On 10/12/2008 01:47 PM, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2008-10-10, Karl Larsen wrote:
> 
>> Adam Funk wrote:
>>> On 2008-10-10, Scott Berry wrote:
>>>
>>>   
>>>> 		I have too many kernels in my menu.lst.  i think I have like seven or
>>>> eight of them.  How do i dwindle them down to two kernels at a time.
>>>> The previous kernel say for instance linux-2.6.27-5 and 6.  I think that
>>>> would be plenty of kernels.
>>>>     
>>>
>>> I just use aptitude or synaptic to (carefully!) remove all but the two
>>> newest kernel packages that I have.  The package removal script
>>> automatically takes them out of the GRUB menu.
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>     If you read your file /boot/grub/menu.lst you will find a line that 
>> tells grub how many kernel's to save. Make that 2 and you will be happy.
> 
> That doesn't remove the potentially crufty old kernel packages, does
> it?
> 
> 

No, but it does do exactly what the OP asked for:

<quote>
I have too many kernels in my menu.lst.  i think I have like seven or
eight of them.  How do i dwindle them down to two kernels at a time.
</quote>

The OP (Scott) didn't ask how to remove the kernels from this system, he
asked how to 'dwindle' the kernel list in his menu.lst down "to two
kernels at a time".

Quite often I do the same; I keep maybe 4 kernels - sometimes more, but
only show two in my menu.lst to keep it from being too cluttered. If I
want more then I just remodify menu.lst.

Note: after editing /boot/grub/menu.lst you should do

sudo update-grub

in order for the menu changes to take place.

  Further, if you have 2 kernels that you want to show (say -19 and
-21), but also have the restricted (-386) and the generic (-generic) for
both, you'll need to change the setting to 4 instead of 2 in order to
show both.
  [I still haven't figured out how to get menu.lst to show -generic
first and -386 second. Derek suggested a few things, but I never did get
it to  work.]