What is the meaning of the XubuntuY string in Ubuntu package names?

Each package name is of the form:

package-XubuntuY*_amd64(i386)

So my questions are:

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

For example, in binutils_2.22-6ubuntu1.3_amd64, what is the meaning of the numbers 6 and 1.3?

Solution 1:

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 is the Debian version of the package.

• ubuntuY is the Yth Ubuntu version of the Debian package.

To quote verbatim from the first link, package-XubuntuY means:

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

2. 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)

3. 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).