How to keep all linux kernel packages on Kubuntu 14.04?

Question

I'm running Kubuntu 14.04 on my private laptop. When the package system updates my Linux kernel it removes the old packages, only keeping the 2 newest versions of the kernel images (and associated packages). At the moment that would be (AFAIR) 3.13.0-32 and 3.13.0-48. How do I get the package system to stop removing the old kernel images?

I realize this will leave me with a long list of not used kernel images, but I would rather have to do the clean up myself, than risk ending up in a situation where I can't boot my laptop.

EDIT: Based on the answer from Aaron Digulla I created a file, /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99keep-kernels, with this content:

APT::NeverAutoRemove
{
   "^linux-image-*-generic$";
   "^linux-image-*-generic$";
   "^linux-headers-*-generic$";
   "^linux-headers-*-generic$";
   "^linux-image-extra-*-generic$";
   "^linux-image-extra-*-generic$";
   "^linux-signed-image-*-generic$";
   "^linux-signed-image-*-generic$";
   "^kfreebsd-image-*-generic$";
   "^kfreebsd-image-*-generic$";
   "^kfreebsd-headers-*-generic$";
   "^kfreebsd-headers-*-generic$";
   "^gnumach-image-*-generic$";
   "^gnumach-image-*-generic$";
   "^.*-modules-*-generic$";
   "^.*-modules-*-generic$";
   "^.*-kernel-*-generic$";
   "^.*-kernel-*-generic$";
   "^linux-backports-modules-.*-generic$";
   "^linux-backports-modules-.*-generic$";
   "^linux-tools-*-generic$";
   "^linux-tools-*-generic$";
};

But that didn't work. Ubuntu still only keeps the 2 latest kernels.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Pinning won't work for you since it will prevent from upgrading kernels altogether.

Look into /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove and /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove-kernels. These files contain lists of packages which should be purged automatically. The second file is maintained by the script /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal

To solve your problem, copy the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove-kernels into /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99keep-kernels and edit the patterns to match any version of the 11 packages in there.

So

"^linux-image-3\.13\.0-45-generic$";

would become

"^linux-image-";

This pattern now matches any version of the package and prevents apt from deleting them ever. The post-install script does the same thing which doesn't create a conflict - your version of the file simply matches more packages and prevents any version to be deleted automatically.

How to keep all linux kernel packages on Kubuntu 14.04?

1 Answers1