I tried it on Lubuntu 16.04; it required modification: # mystery one-liner from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13513171 # dpkg -l 'linux-' | sed '/

I tried it on Lubuntu 16.04; it required modification: # mystery one-liner from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13513171 # dpkg -l 'linux-' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]\)./\1/;/[0-9]/!d' | xargs -p sudo apt-get -y purge # my corrected/improved version: noncurrent_kernel_pkgs() { dpkg -l 'linux-*[0-9]*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^ii *\([^ ][^ ]*\)[^ ]*.*/\1/' ; } # corrections/(possible-)improvements: # - dpkg -l 'linux-' # returns nothing # - dpkg -l 'linux-*[0-9]*' # moves 'pkgnm must contain a number' rule (last sed cmd in orig: '/[0-9]/!d') forward # - pkgnm isolation/extraction was broken (did dpkg output change?) output: kg@kg-VirtualBox:~$ noncurrent_kernel_pkgs linux-headers-4.4.0-43 linux-headers-4.4.0-43-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-45 linux-headers-4.4.0-45-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-53 linux-headers-4.4.0-53-generic linux-headers-4.4.0-57 linux-headers-4.4.0-57-generic linux-image-4.4.0-43-generic linux-image-4.4.0-45-generic linux-image-4.4.0-53-generic linux-image-4.4.0-57-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-43-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-45-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-53-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-57-generic kg@kg-VirtualBox:~$ uname -r 4.4.0-59-generic kg@kg-VirtualBox:~$