== What does a specific Ubuntu kernel version number mean? ==

The official version of an Ubuntu kernel tells you a number of things, including the base upstream version, the current Ubuntu ABI identifier and the kernel flavour.  (See ''How can we determine the version of the running kernel?'' to find your current version number.)

Given a version like {{{2.6.35-6.9-generic}}} this can be broken into four parts as below:
    {{{<base kernel version>-<ABI number>.<upload number>-<flavour>}}}

The {{{base kernel version}}} represents the mainline version on which the Ubuntu kernel is based.  The {{{ABI number}}} represents significant changes in the kernel Application Binary Interface.  The {{{upload number}}} is a monotonically increasing counter for each upload of this base version.  The {{{flavour}}} indicates which kernel configuration variant this is (See ''What is a Kernel Flavour?'').