what are linux-image-extra and linux-image-generic?

Question

Every time I use sudo apt-get upgrade, I get errors with the linux-image-extra and linux-image-generic.

I am new to Ubuntu so I would like to know if these "image" files are the same as in Windows?

What is the problem with my system if these image files can not be upgraded?

Output from df -h

Filesystem                   Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root  291G   16G  261G   6% /
none                         4,0K     0  4,0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev                         1,4G  4,0K  1,4G   1% /dev
tmpfs                        288M  1,2M  287M   1% /run
none                         5,0M     0  5,0M   0% /run/lock
none                         1,5G  216K  1,5G   1% /run/shm
none                         100M   64K  100M   1% /run/user
/dev/sda1                    236M  208M   16M  94% /boot
/home/mama/.Private          291G   16G  261G   6% /home/mama

Link to paste.ubuntu.com: error message.

Solution

_{Although you have to include more details into your question, I will try and guess what your problem is:
Your problem was caused by something different, but I leave this answer as it could eventually help others who might read this post.}

I assume you run sudo apt-get upgrade and it tells you it did not install/upgrade the packages linux-image-extra and linux-image-generic.

First of all, those packages are representing the latest kernel available for your system (in easy words). By installing/upgrading them, you install a new kernel version which will be used after the next reboot.

As these kernel updates are major updates and usually need additional dependencies etc. to be taken care of, the normal apt-get upgrade cannot handle them. You need the advanced upgrade command sudo apt-get dist-upgrade to proceed. This should do the kernel update and the warning about not-upgraded packages should disappear.

---

In your case the error was caused by the lack of enough free space in your /boot partition, which is the place where new kernels get installed. Therefore your question was marked as duplicate of How do I free up more space in /boot?, because you will find detailed answers there on how to solve your problem.

Comments

[Giulo Figlio]

I use sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and the error message

[karel]

The Windows NT kernel is used in all Windows NT systems (including Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10). Windows does not use the Linux kernel, so linux-image-extra and linux-image-generic are not included in Windows.

[Eliah Kagan]

It appears the OP is already using the dist-upgrade action. Also, while sudo apt-get upgrade often will not upgrade kernel metapackages (because this usually pulls in wholly new kernel packages as dependencies), running it in that situation doesn't really produce an error. (It does give a message about there being packages that are held back, which I suppose one might interpret as an error.)

[JoKeR]

@ByteBOT simply to check detailed info on a package run `apt-cache show linux-image-extra-uname -r (uname -r in upper comas (``))

[Giulo Figlio]

link to text error message paste.ubuntu.com/11031801/plain

[ByteBOT]

Giulio: Please remove the /plain from your link! With that, it does not direct to the correct site without having to log into Ubuntu One... Correct is: http://paste.ubuntu.com/11031801/ which appears as paste.ubuntu.com/11031801