Arrghhhhh!! This happens rather frequently, caused by the release of a better and more bug-free Linux kernel. This is a good thing actually, but its side effect is exactly what this post is trying to solve. Your boot partition grows, and the next thing you know, you can’t upgrade to a newer version of the kernel anymore!
Good thing about the internet is that you can find almost any information you want. I can always find the solution anytime, but I am lazy. This post is more a reminder to myself rather than another explanation to what is happening.
First you go to a command screen and type this line:
uname -r
This will tell you what your current kernel version that you are using. Note that.
Next go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager
Search for linux-image-2 in the search box.
The list might get a bit confusing. I’m confused. So what I’ll do is to type this at the command line instead:
gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
This corresponds to the list that you see when you boot up your computer. Now you know what to remove. It’s a good idea to only remove all but the last two previous good versions of the kernel, just in case. But it’s up to your own comfort level anyway.
Note that it is not necessary to remove the entries in menu.lst, that was why I did not include sudo in the command. Once you remove the values in synaptic, the values in menu.lst will be removed anyway.