The reason why 'apt-get autoremove' is stated there is that it is a simple working way in 16.04 and later for most users, if your system is not broken already. purge-old-kernels is included in some Ubuntu package; consequently it is supported by Launchpad's bug reporting system. But as said in the document, it is currently deprecated and its bugs will likely not be fixed. It might still be useful for some users in some cases.
If one wants to use unattended-upgrades manually, he/she could disable it from being called automatically. One should avoid installing security updates manually by Software Updater in 14.04, if one expects to use apt /unattended-upgrades for removing kernels automatically. I have developed some software that makes the un-clogging part easier; link to related bountysource.com page is included in the document. Just feel free to post a bounty and/or give some feedback about the interface in the respective Launchpad page. I guess the software could be launched automatically in case of kernel clog when it happens in interactive session (or even in non-interactive session, if the software is made to support completely non-interactive un-clogging). If you install a kernel manually in command line by say sudo apt-get install linux-image-4.4.0-87-generic which kernel(s) that command should remove in turn in your opinion? Or could it be that the user who runs the command should take care of it? User possibly wants to keep some spare kernels, in case the one that is just installed is bad. Or a developer may want to keep some testing kernels etc. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to unattended-upgrades in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1357093 Title: Kernels not autoremoving, causing out of space error on LVM or Encrypted installation or on any installation, when /boot partition gets full Status in unattended-upgrades: New Status in unattended-upgrades package in Ubuntu: Fix Released Bug description: Currently if one chooses to use LVM or encrypted install, a /boot partition is created of 236Mb Once kernel updates start being released this partition soon fills until people are left unable to upgrade. While you and I might know that we need to watch partition space, many of the people we have installing think that a windows disk is a disk and not a partition, education is probably the key - but in the meantime support venues keep needing to deal with the fact the partition is too small and/or old kernels are not purged as new ones install. For workaround and sytem repair, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RemoveOldKernels To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unattended-upgrades/+bug/1357093/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp