Arch Linux

rdbeni0

Member

Registered: 2020-01-09

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] system cleanup - remove old kernel modules

hi,

recently i decided to clean my system. I found below files which are not tracked by pacman and it seems that below files are not belonging to any package:

/usr/lib/modules/5.10.62-1-lts                   
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.62-1-lts/kernel                    
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.62-1-lts/kernel/misc                                      
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.62-1-lts/kernel/misc/vboxdrv.ko.xz                        
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.62-1-lts/kernel/misc/vboxnetadp.ko.xz                                                                                                                   
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.62-1-lts/kernel/misc/vboxnetflt.ko.xz                                                                                                                   
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.63-1-lts                 
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.63-1-lts/kernel                 
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.63-1-lts/kernel/misc         
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.63-1-lts/kernel/misc/vboxdrv.ko.xz  
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.63-1-lts/kernel/misc/vboxnetadp.ko.xz                                                                                                                   
/usr/lib/modules/5.10.63-1-lts/kernel/misc/vboxnetflt.ko.xz                     
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.alias                                          
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.alias.bin                                      
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.builtin.alias.bin                              
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.builtin.bin                                    
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.dep                                            
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.dep.bin                                        
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.devname                                        
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.softdep                                        
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.symbols                                        
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/modules.symbols.bin                                    
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/updates                                                
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/updates/dkms                                           
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/updates/dkms/vboxdrv.ko.zst                                                                                                                   
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/updates/dkms/vboxnetadp.ko.zst                                                                                                                
/usr/lib/modules/5.17.5-arch1-1/updates/dkms/vboxnetflt.ko.zst       

my current kernel is default "linux-lts":

~ % pacman -Q |grep linux-lts 
linux-lts 5.15.37-1
linux-lts-headers 5.15.37-1
~ % uname -a
Linux x260 5.15.37-1-lts #1 SMP Sun, 01 May 2022 15:44:53 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

^ it means that i am not using mentioned modules.
So simple question - can i remove them manually?

Last edited by rdbeni0 (2022-05-19 20:03:14)

Irets

Member

Registered: 2019-02-01

Posts: 143

Re: [SOLVED] system cleanup - remove old kernel modules

I don't know how you have ended up with untracked files, but it's safe to remove the module folders that are for kernels which are not present on your system anymore.

EDIT: You probably should also check if there are any leftovers in /boot, too.

Last edited by Irets (2022-05-09 14:52:36)

tucuxi

Member

From: Switzerland

Registered: 2020-03-08

Posts: 291

Re: [SOLVED] system cleanup - remove old kernel modules

You probably have the “linux” kernel installed as well, even if you don’t use it.

rdbeni0

Member

Registered: 2020-01-09

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] system cleanup - remove old kernel modules

Hi all, thanks for your posts

little update from my side:
i removed all  old kernel modules which are not tracked by pacman. I also removed second package "linux" (for now "linux-lts" is enough for me) and then removed old modules.
But i think i will install "linux" package, as potentially failback in case of errors with linus-lts

so it looks like if some module is not tracked by pacman and belongs to old linux package, we can remove it.

i also checked virtualbox (because untracked modules were connected with Virtualbox) and have not issue at all

Last edited by rdbeni0 (2022-05-19 20:08:32)

cypa

Member

Registered: 2021-06-30

Posts: 32

Re: [SOLVED] system cleanup - remove old kernel modules

try linux-zen insdtead of linux

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,547

Re: [SOLVED] system cleanup - remove old kernel modules

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue that was discussed here 2 years ago and can and will happen with any kernels and third party modules you keep around.

Please don't necrobump: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Genera … bumping%22

Closing this old thread.