Doesn’t harm, but actually since at least half a year they are stored in the firmware after you entered them once
Thanks fzinken, didnt realize that.
Well this is embarassing but I cant find the install instructions for linux to install from compressed image.
The tool I will use is dd, so think the command will be
dd if=OSMC_TGT_rbp2_20180207.img of=/dev/sdx
where sdx will be my mounted ext4 partition. Not sure whether to add a block size command or not. SD card is class10 16G
That should work, but why not use the OSMC installer?
https://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home:osmc&package=osmc-installer&hcolor=17394a&fcolor=17394a&acolor=17394a
I think /dev/sdx should be the device, not a partition. It should be attached but not mounted.
It’s more efficient to use a fairly large BS.
Fzinken & dillthedog
Installed using the installer and all seems well,
i choose latest image January 2018
I’m using the default OSMC skin and only installed 2 addons.
/ space is now 9% previous installed was about 25%
About 30 minutes ago there was an update to February 2018, Ive changed
update frequency now to once a week. After the update I pressed OSMC
and for a moment the sad face appeared 
but 10 seconds later kodi returned.
When I checked the load average, it was high around 3 and most likely i had not
given the system enough time to decompress and install the updates. Anyway
all seems fine and can log in using SSH again.
The kernel is now 4.14-15 and the old 4.9.29 kernel still remains in /boot
Is it ok to delete the old kernel and module tree in /lib/modules or shall I just leave it
there?
Will be marking this thread as solved shortly. Many thanks for all your help.
Excellent news.
Leave it. The update system leaves the previous kernel as a fallback. Anything older becomes an autoremove candidate if you update via the command line, and is automatically removed if you update via the GUI.
Excellent! I’ve marked first post as solved.
The problem was almost certainly down to some tinkering and software/clash
reinstalling has freed up some card space and OSMC does feel like its running quicker.
Thanks for all the support.