I'm puzzled about the different kernel releases and versions I'm seeing in my various Ubuntu machines. I have Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS on my workstation and the 10.04.3 LTS server edition on 4 boxes, 3 of which are virtual machines. This is the list of machines with info from output of the uname -a command:

VM1 & VM2 are testing/development machines that I'm trying to get to mirror the production box as closely as possible. VM3 is a fresh install and barely configured. How did these boxes get different kernel releases/versions? I did not build the workstation or production box but I built the VMs, however never did anything (that I know of) to have them turn out this way.

Have you updated the machines regularly? At least the 3 server editions should have the same kernel version if you have updated them all, don't know if they keep the generic and server in sync, but I assume they do.
You have also two different releases (generic and server) for a reason: The generic kernel is configured to work better on desktop environments (better reaction time, but less throughput) while it is more throughput, but longer reaction time with the server kernel. IIRC, the server kernel also comes with PAE enabled, but I think that this nowadays also the case with the desktop kernels.

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Probably what's going on is that you haven't rebooted your production server in a while. Kernel updates won't use the new kernel until you reboot.

The nice thing about open source is you never have to guess what's the difference between all these kernels. You can read the Changelog and see for yourself what the new features are and whether it's worth rebooting to the new kernel for your needs.

http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changel...5.78/changelog

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Ah yes, that makes perfect sense. Thank you so much for the replies