Tag: kernel

Categories
Linux

Linux Ubuntu Kernel Management

To revert to the latest recommended kernel:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04

To maintain the kernel and cleanse the unused:

You should check partially removed kernels with

dpkg -l linux-image-\* | grep ^rc

and remove them with for example sudo apt-get purge linux-image-4.4.0-101-generic.

Purging will remove initramfs generation rules from /var/lib/initramfs-tools/.

If it does not help, you can remove them manually from initramfs list:

sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/3.13.0-39-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-101-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-103-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-38-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-45-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-59-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-77-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-78-generic
sudo rm /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.4.0-81-generic

Usually I run purge-old-kernels followed by sudo apt-get autoremove to have only 2 recent kernels.

You can reinstall installed kernels with their initramfses:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall \
$(dpkg -l linux-image-\* | grep ^ii | awk '{print $2}')

ref: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1001285/why-are-old-initrd-files-of-uninstalled-kernels-filling-up-boot-partition

Categories
Linux

Ubuntu, Kernel 4.14+, VMWare Workstation 14

I was unable to compile the ubuntu kernel patches for VMWare Workstation 14.0 for a couple of reasons on Ubuntu 16.04 with an updated kernel v4.14:

 

1. Launching VMWare Workstation resulted in a GUI window complaining no GCC-7.2 was available, solved by the following commands (thanks to https://askubuntu.com/questions/859256/how-to-install-gcc-7-or-clang-4-0) :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/gcc-7.1
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-7 g++-7

2. The next failure was with further kernel compiling modules with the vmmonitor service failing. This needed a patch on the install scripts to support the latest kernel, resolved by the following commands (thanks to https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/commit/770c7ffe611520ac96490d235399554c64e87d9f for the patch and https://superuser.com/questions/1255099/vmware-workstation-not-enough-physical-memory-since-last-update/1255963 for guidance on applying it):


~$ sudo cd /tmp
~$  cp /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon.tar .
~$  tar xf vmmon.tar
~$  rm vmmon.tar
~$  wget https://raw.gi 
thubusercontent.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/fadedd9c8a4dd23f74da2b448572df95666dfe12/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c
~$  mv -f hostif.c vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c
~$  tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
~$  rm -fr vmmon-only
~$  mv -f vmmon.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon.tar
~$  vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Categories
Linux

Ubuntu & Virtualbox

Ubuntu 16.04 (kernel 4.14), Virtualbox

I was trying to install Oracle VirtualBox either from their repo or from the Ubuntu repo but both failed to compile the Kernel Module.

I tried various guides before actually reading the error log whereupon I found the “libelf-dev” package was required (at least for installing virtualbox-5.2 from Oracle directly!).