Ubuntu Wiki

Why do mainline builds have a -<series> suffix?

Each mainline build is named by the base upstream version suffixed with an Ubuntu release name, 2.6.35-maverick. This tells us the upstream version which was built, and additionally which configuration was used to build it. This tells us which release is most compatible with the kernel as built. This does not prevent the kernel being used on other releases, though it is most likely to work correctly on the release it is build for, or earlier ones. The further away from your base kernel release you are the more likely that there will be an incompatible userspace interaction which will prevent them working for you.