I find sudo aptitude purge '~i2.6.32-57' is a good way to select the right packages. I often do things like. sudo aptitude purge '~i3.0.8-2[459]' That takes care of all the headers and images and -generic and -kernel and -virtual.... Someone posted a really nice one that used the uname output very nicely but I've lost it. Probably one of these: http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/5829/remove-all-unused-kernels-with-apt-get If you catch yourself doing an aptitude search piped to grep you're probably doing it wrong. You would catch yourself doing that for a a good reason (IMHO) -- the documentation for the very powerful search is a rather inscrutable. As to Ubuntu not cleaning up kernels..... There actually is an autoremove. I don't know how I enabled it, but there are remnants that give me a clue: gsker at veeta:~/mail> dpkg -S /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal apt: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/apt-auto-removal and /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01autoremove-kernels I catch it removing kernel packages once in a while. :-) FWIW On Fri, 21 Feb 2014, tclug at freakzilla.com wrote: > You cn remove anything that's not for the current kernel version. One of my > biggest nitpicks with Ubuntu is that it doesn't do that automatically. > > Like David said, it's not a bad idea to leave the headers in there. > > > On Thu, 20 Feb 2014, paul g wrote: > >> I have a computer running Ubuntu 10.04 and have removed most of the images >> using the following command in bash sudo aptitude search linux-image | >> grep -E "^i" >> >> then I updated grub, >> >> I pulled a dpkg -l |less command and here are the results. >> >> ri linux-headers-2.6.32-45 >> 2.6.32-45.104 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-45-generic >> 2.6.32-45.104 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-46 >> 2.6.32-46.108 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-46-generic >> 2.6.32-46.108 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-47 >> 2.6.32-47.109 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-47-generic >> 2.6.32-47.109 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-48 >> 2.6.32-48.110 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-48-generic >> 2.6.32-48.110 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-49 >> 2.6.32-49.111 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-49-generic >> 2.6.32-49.111 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-50 >> 2.6.32-50.112 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-50-generic >> 2.6.32-50.112 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-51 >> 2.6.32-51.113 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-51-generic >> 2.6.32-51.113 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-52 >> 2.6.32-52.114 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-52-generic >> 2.6.32-52.114 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-53 >> 2.6.32-53.115 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-53-generic >> 2.6.32-53.115 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-54 >> 2.6.32-54.116 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-54-generic >> 2.6.32-54.116 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-55 >> 2.6.32-55.117 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-55-generic >> 2.6.32-55.117 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-56 >> 2.6.32-56.118 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-56-generic >> 2.6.32-56.118 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-57 >> 2.6.32-57.119 Header files related to >> Linux kernel version 2.6.32 >> ii linux-headers-2.6.32-57-generic >> 2.6.32-57.119 Linux kernel headers for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_ >> ii linux-headers-generic >> 2.6.32.57.64 Generic Linux kernel >> headers >> ii linux-image-2.6.32-55-generic >> 2.6.32-55.117 Linux kernel image for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_64 >> ii linux-image-2.6.32-56-generic >> 2.6.32-56.118 Linux kernel image for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_64 >> ii linux-image-2.6.32-57-generic >> 2.6.32-57.119 Linux kernel image for >> version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_64 >> : >> please help >> >> note the ri preceding the linux-headers-2.6.32-45 >> >> Do I need to keep the headers on the computer in order to continue to >> operate the programs I have installed. >> >> Thank You. >> >