MaGe Linux Operations

Jul 30, 2022 · Fundamentals

How Linux Kernel Version Numbers Are Structured and What They Mean

This article explains how Linux kernel version numbers have evolved—from Linus Torvalds’s early simple increment scheme to the modern three‑component “major.minor.revision” format—detailing the meaning of each segment, the role of patch and release‑candidate identifiers, and how to identify kernel versions using uname.