I want to know the difference between three linux image-variance available for Ubuntu.

Question

$ apt-cache search linux-image-3 

linux-image-3.0.0-15-generic - Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64 

linux-image-3.0.0-15-server - Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86_64 

linux-image-3.0.0-15-virtual - Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64

How to differentiate all of these?

Answer 1

This is from the Ubuntu Server FAQ:

There is a meta-package available that will install the latest Server kernel version which is called Linux-image-server, whereas the Linux-image-generic package is a meta-package that can be used for the latest Desktop kernel version. There is a detailed description in the server guide about the details of the changes made in the Server kernel.

Linux-image-server is used for both architectures x86 and amd64.

You can choose according to the kind of system you have. If it is a 64-bit processor you can use the amd64 architecture or the x86 architecture. But, if your processor is 32 bit you can only use the x86 kernel.

Virtual kernel:

We use a virtual kernel inside a virtual machine. It has the necessary drivers to run inside the most popular virtualization technologies like VMWare, Xen, etc. Server kernel has the important drivers to work with a wide range of hardware and can be installed directly on the host system.

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