How to remove CentOS VMWare kernel?

[mcbsys]

Hi,

I've been testing/running PiaF under VMWare. I followed the instructions at the bottom of this page "to install a special version of the CentOS/Linux kernel that has been tuned for VMware." After doing that, I found the following info about my setup:

Build Operating System: 2.6.18-53.1.14.el5
Current Operating System: 2.6.18-92.1.6.el5

Now I want to switch to Microsoft Virtual PC/Server. I converted the VM using vmToolkit's VMDKConvert and PiaF is now running under VPC.

The question is, should I now uninstall the VMWare version of CentOS, and if so, how do I do it?

I tried running these commands:

cd /root
rpm -ev kernel-vm*.rpm

but I get error messages telling me that the two .rpms are not installed.

Thanks,
Mark

[markosjal]

If you were "running" the VMware lernel, it would show VM in the name and it does not. You may have it installed and need to select it at start up. So what you are "running" appears to be non - VMware kernel

I looked at this thread because I installed the wrong VMware kernel on a Virtual Machine, and I was hoping to figure out how to remove it.

[mcbsys]

Thanks for the info. For your uninstall, did you try running the -ev option that I mentioned? (Back up first!)

I decided to do an install from scratch in Virtual PC. The trick on that is to type "text" to do the install so that it CentOS installs in text mode. VPC can't handle the default 24-bit graphics of the CentOS installer.

[jroper]

The trick on that is to type "text" to do the install...

typing ksalt at the command prompt would install in text mode, and remove the overhead of the LVM file system.

Joe

[mcbsys]

I realized that another problem might be that the standard install gave me CentOS 2.6.18-92.1.6.e15, whereas the instructions at http://pbxinaflash.com/vm/ still reference 2.6.18-53.1.4.e15. The same repository does have the -92.1.6 VM kernel available.

Mark

[mcbsys]

Thanks Joe. I tried ksalt last night. One unexpected result: with the "text" install, the .vhd file was 2.3GB after the install. With the "ksalt" install, the .vhd file was 3.0GB after the install. Any reason there should be that much difference? Does the LVM system do a better job of managing unused space?