Ubuntu – How to boot with an older kernel version

If you look at the answers to this question, it may provide some pointers: How do I install an older 2.6.37 Kernel Version?

As far as I can work out, if you go into the Grub menu at start up, just after the BIOS screen, you then have a number of options for booting.

If your Grub menu does not show when you boot up, then the simplest way to display your Grub is to press and hold the SHIFT button while booting.

As an alternative, you can always displays Grub without it booting any particular kernel:

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

change grub_timeout to -1

finish off by running

sudo update-grub

Unless you manually deleted the old kernel, you will still have these on your machine.

Hold down the Shift key as you boot up and it will take you to the Grub screen. From here, you can choose which version of the kernel to boot into.

If you really don't need the newer ones you can find which kernel you're currently using by going to the terminal and running

uname -r

to see which kernel you're using. Then run

dpkg -l | grep linux-image

and note the kernel versions you don't need anymore (anything starting 3.5 I guess but if the kernel you're running works fine, you can get read of all the others). Then you can run

sudo apt-get purge linux-image-3.5.x-xx-generic

That should free up some disk space for you too