dear male and female guys

i am linuxgeek light ie i don't know much about linux other than i like using it rather than gates-hit and big-jobs stuff. what i want to know is why do i keep getting updates of the kernel (latest 2.6.32-33)? i know how to get rid of them via the synaptic package but i can't find any information as to why i should use one or another.

i use ubuntu 10.04 because i don't think that much of 10.10 or 11.04. can anybody tell me where i can get the relevant info (for someone not too computer savvy)?

You could be getting kernel updates for bug fixing or secutiry reasons. As long as you dont have any problems, using the newest kernel version is the best idea.

Welcome to the forums, mrcraven!

I'm sure you've heard the phrase "open source software"... well what that actually means is you never need to GUESS "what is this update... why am I being prompted to install a new kernel?"

packages.ubuntu.com is the website that explains every version, change, and update to Ubuntu software. If you want you can even view the source code! Every package has a "changelog" for example: http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changel...2.38/changelog

So for example you can see that the April 20 update added some wireless compatibility, the March 14 update bumped ABI, etc.

In practice I recommend simply saying "yes" to all of the kernel updates. They are minor bug fixes and security patches that may or may not affect you. You're running 2.6.32 which is a very stable and well-tested kernel.