Kernel question

[Executioner]

I had to roll back my kernel to 4.10.0.42 because Virtual Box would lock up the PC - frozen. Had to power down and restart.

During boot, I held down the shift key and saw all the different kernels. My question is:
I saw 3 different copies: generic, upstart, and recovery mode. I selected generic, but was curious what the other copies are for.

Next, since I selected this kernel, will it stay this way, or do I have to delete the others on top of the stack? If I have to delete them, how do I delete them?

[catweazel]

4.10 is end of life and no longer receives updates. If you don't have an AM4 socket CPU (Ryzen, A8 and A10), you'd be better off on kernel 4.4.

[michael louwe]

@ Executioner, .......

...

.
To delete unwanted and unstable kernels, go to >Update Manager >View >Linux kernels >Remove.

If there are 2 kernels installed, by default, LM will boot to the latest kernel, eg boot 4.10 over 4.4.

[smurphos]

Upstart is an alternative to systemd, the default init process in Mint. This option will attempt to boot the machine using Upstart.

http://upstart.ubuntu.com/

Recovery is a way of booting into a terminal environment as root user in order to fix broken things or further bork your machine depending on your capabilities

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecoveryMode

[Cosmo.]

Although you did not say it, but I am at 99 % sure, that your VB version is the outdated version 5.0.x. Freezes with kernel 4.13 are a known fact nad predictable. VB 5.1.x and 5.2.x have fixed this problem.

[Executioner]

Although you did not say it, but I am at 99 % sure, that your VB version is the outdated version 5.0.x. Freezes with kernel 4.13 are a known fact nad predictable. VB 5.1.x and 5.2.x have fixed this problem.

Yes the old version 5.0.40

Going to the VB website, which one do I download? It has several Ubuntu flavors listed:
Ubuntu 17.04 ("Zesty") / 17.10 ("Artful") i386 | AMD64
Ubuntu 16.10 ("Yakkety") i386 | AMD64
Ubuntu 16.04 ("Xenial") i386 | AMD64
Ubuntu 14.04 ("Trusty") / 14.10 ("Utopic") / 15.04 ("Vivid") i386 | AMD64

I'm running the x64 version of Mint 18.3 Cinnamon.

[smurphos]

Xenial for Mint 18.x

[Cosmo.]

smurphos' answer is correct, but you need also to take the correct version for the architecture of your Mint. If you have the 64 bit version you must take the AMD64 version (this has nothing to do, whether you have an Intel or AMD CPU), for 32 bit take i386.