Ubuntu – the meaning of the XubuntuY string in Ubuntu package names

naming conventionspackaging

Each package name is in the form: package-XubuntuY*_amd64(i386)

So my questions are:

  • What does the X stand for?
  • What does the Y stand for?

for example binutils_2.22-6ubuntu1.3_amd64

What is the meaning of the numbers 6 and 1.3

Best Answer

There is a detailed explanation here and here. If you are really interested you can read the Debian Policy Manual also. To answer your questions:

X = this is the debian version of the package

ubuntuY = this is the Yth ubuntu version of the debian package

To quote Verbatim from the first link, package-XubuntuY****” means:

package = this is the name of the program/library.

X = this is the debian version of the package

if X=0 this means that there is no debian package (or that the ubuntu team has forked a debian package to a newer version than the one found in the debian repositories) _ ex: bzip2-1.0.3-0ubuntu2_ (as shown in this example the debian package might be updated in the meantime and the ubuntu package will probably merged with it on the next version)

ubuntuY**** = this is the Yth ubuntu version of the debian package. if this is missing this mean that it is a clean, unchanged debian package ex: gzip-1.3.5-12 (in this sample, this is the original debian package included in ubuntu) if this is present it means that Ubuntu has taken the debian package and released it with some additional patches or bug fixes. _ ex: sudo-1.6.8p12-1ubuntu6_ (in this sample this is the 6th version of the ubuntu package based on the debian version 1.6.8p12-1 of sudo).

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