Clean up grub list at boot

[gomangodave]

I installed The latest and greatest Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and everything is clicking along just fine except one annoying feature that I am unable to get my finger on.

I have quite a list of choices at bootup. I updated a couple version of the kernel and there is this memtest thing...twice... Then my family also uses windows 7 so that is the default at the bottom of the list set to boot after 3 seconds to keep the nagging to a minimum.

I would like to know the cleanest and safest way to have the list only show the current kernel option and the windows 7 option if this is even advised. Would it be best to have a backup (Previous kernel) in the list? *just in case*

Is it safe to seek out the old kernel by version number and uninstall?
Will this remove the entries in the list?

Is editing the list and leaving other options installed wise?

Is there a gui grub2 configuration tool with these advanced options? I have StartUp-Manager, but there is no options to change the list.

Im looking for the best/safest option to get this done because I now see another kernel update image in the update manager and it is going to increase the size of my list once I find the time to update. Im a bit green and scared I will ruin a good thing here. Everything is working perfectly so far and I realize one click and it could all be over.

Thanks in advance.

[schwim]

Grub 2 is supposed to be a smarter grub so you should no longer edit the menu.lst. Here's what you need to do to remove those kernels from the bootup menu.

Open your package manager and do a search for "linux-image" Find the kernel versions that are installed. Make note of all the numbers(2.6.31-14, 2.6.31-15, etc.) You want to keep the latest(and many people keep one older in case the latest has issues on their system) and discard the rest. Do this by doing a search for each kernel version you want to remove(for instance, do a search for 2.6.31-14) then remove the kernel and kernel headers for that version. Repeat for each version of the kernel you wish to remove.

Once you've removed all of the kernels you don't want listed, open a terminal and run "sudo update-grub".

On restart, you should see a boot menu missing all of the kernels you removed via the package manager.

[devils casper]

You can remove memtest entries from GRUB Menu by removing execution bit of its script.

sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+
sudo update-grub2

sudo update-grub2 command will generate new grub.cfg file.
For other entries, follow schwim's instructions.

[arsogukpinar]

Hi,

As schwim suggested uninstalling the old kernel packages would be good enough.

alis@advance17:/etc/default$ dpkg -l | grep linux-image
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-11-generic                                 2.6.31-11.38                               Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-12-generic                                 2.6.31-12.41                               Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-13-generic                                 2.6.31-13.45                               Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic                                 2.6.31-14.48                               Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-15-generic                                 2.6.31-15.50                               Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii  linux-image-2.6.31-16-generic                                 2.6.31-16.53                               Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86
ii  linux-image-generic                                           2.6.31.16.29                               Generic Linux kernel image

alis@advance17:/etc/default$ apt-get remove linux-image-2.6.28-11-server