[SOLVED] Why is version of linux-kernel-generic lower than actual kernel used?

[gwi]

Currently I am running Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon. Kernel version is 4.13.0-45-generic (according to uname -r).

Synaptic showed there were a lot of kernels installed, probably caused by successive updates. I uninstalled three versions of linux-headers-(version), linux-headers-(version)-generic, linux-image-(version)-generic and linux-image-extra-(version)-generic. This freed almost 800 MB of disk space. What is left now, are:

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linux-headers-4.10.0-38
linux-headers-4.13.0-45
linux-headers-4.10.0-38-generic
linux-headers-4.13.0-45-generic
linux-image-4.10.0-38-generic
linux-image-4.13.0-45-generic
linux-image-extra-4.10.0-38-generic
linux-image-extra-4.13.0-45-generic

Since I am running kernel version 4.13.0-45, I thought I could remove the packages with 4.10.0-38 in their name. But that results in a warning that linux-kernel-generic will be removed as well. The package linux-kernel-generic has an installed version number of 4.10.0-38.

What is the function of linux-kernel-generic, and why doesn't it have version 4.13.0-45?

[rene]

Try apt show linux-kernel-generic; this will tell you that the linux-kernel-generic package is merely a meta-package that depends on "the release kernel", which is to say, the kernel the OS originally came with; 4.10 in the case of Ubuntu 16.04/Mint 18.x. It makes sense to keep said kernel around as a fallback but there's no technical problem with removing it. Do be sure to not also remove linux-firmware, also a dependency of linux-kernel-generic.

[Flemur]

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linux-image-extra-4.10.0-38-generic
linux-image-extra-4.13.0-45-generic

Since I am running kernel version 4.13.0-45, I thought I could remove the packages with 4.10.0-38 in their name. But that results in a warning that linux-kernel-generic will be removed as well. The package linux-kernel-generic has an installed version number of 4.10.0-38.
What is the function of linux-kernel-generic, and why doesn't it have version 4.13.0-45?

I thought I was going to show how I had linux-kernel-generic with later kernels...

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$ apt-rdepends linux-kernel-generic
...
linux-kernel-generic
  Depends: linux-firmware
  Depends: linux-headers-4.10.0-38
  Depends: linux-headers-4.10.0-38-generic
  Depends: linux-image-4.10.0-38-generic
  Depends: linux-image-extra-4.10.0-38-generic

..although I don't have those kernels installed (linux-firmware is installed), and then it turns out linux-kernel-generic is not installed.

So that matches what rene said. I guess.

[gwi]

Thank you both for explaining.