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I've just updated my Linux kernel and I wonder if there is any other concern apart from being able to recover if the new version can't boot.

What do you think?

Thank you!

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    It's a good practice to keep the latest and previous known-good kernels, but beyond that, you can remove older ones safely, and strictly speaking, you can get the system down to the one working kernel, but so long as disk space isn't an issue having them around helps troubleshooting. The package manager doesn't clear them out automatically because it doesn't know what you may have compiled specifically for a given kernel or even which kernels have booted successfully.
    – Stephanie
    Jun 20, 2012 at 22:27

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The biggest reason I've found for why you might want an old kernel is because it's a specialty kernel and there's no recent counterpart. I have an "old" -rt kernel because there is no "current" one available mainstream.

Specialty kernels aside, though, as far as I can personally tell or care, old generic ones are obsolete except for recovery purposes. I've never had a compatibility issue between an old program and a new kernel.

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  • You may have binary drivers compiled specifically for an older kernel, that's a possibility - even if the kernel itself isn't "special"
    – Stephanie
    Jun 20, 2012 at 22:23
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No other reasons than to be able to boot should the latest upgrade go wrong. I tend to keep one or two older versions available and kick out the rest.

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