Re: Whole lot of dir's in /lib/modules - can I delete them?

Michael <[email protected]> Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:35:06 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.gentoo.user
Message-ID	<2411862.ElGaqSPkdT@rogueboard>

On Sunday, 26 April 2026 18:10:10 British Summer Time 
[email protected] wrote:
> On 4/27/26 12:10 AM, Michael wrote:
> > On Sunday, 26 April 2026 16:52:30 British Summer Time
> > 
> > [email protected] wrote:
> >> Dear all,
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> Andrew
> > 
> > Whenever you build a kernel with various options built as modules
> > [M], as opposed to building them in-kernel [*], the compiled
> > modules are stored under /lib/modules/.
> > 
> > You can find all available modules of your current kernel with:
> > 
> > find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -type f -name '*.ko*'
> > 
> > If you have cleared out old kernel images and initramfs files from
> > your /efi/ or /boot/, then you have no use for their old module
> > files hanging around in your /lib/modules/ and you can safely
> > delete them manually to recover disk space.
> 
> Thanks Michael, that's what I though. I've been using the prebuilt
> kernel, "-bin" for a while hence a whole lot of modules but have to
> get back to my own build which usually has stuff all built-in. And
> yes, I have been deleting stuff in /efi/EFI/Gentoo but didn't think
> of /lib/modules.
> 
> 	Thanks,
> 		Andrew

I tend to keep two or three previous kernels and their modules on my 
system at a time, just in case something goes wrong with the current 
kernel release.  I must admit I only had to revert to previous kernels 
rarely, because of bugs or a corrupt fs, so this is not a regular 
occurrence.  With disk space being relatively cheap it doesn't hurt to 
keep a the last couple of kernels and their modules, just in case.

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