Questions about OS updates

[John Toliver]

Hi all,

I've been out of the loop for a while as I'm in nursing school.  I set
my automatic updates on my Hardy install to auto download about once
every two weeks.  Each time I do, I notice I have a new kernel, new
updates usually for firefox, evolution, openoffice, samba, and a host
of other smaller support apps.  I'm worried that in my configuring
Hardy in the past, or some other issues I've had I might have an
improper sources.list file or something like that.  The reason I feel
this way is that I don't ever remember getting THIS many updates in
Gutsy or in Feisty before it.  Here is what my sources.list file looks
like: (I've removed a lot of the stuff with "#" in front of it and
only show the actual sources):

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy multiverse
deb-src http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu gutsy-security main restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main universe restricted multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy main universe
restricted multiverse #Added by software-properties
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security universe main
multiverse restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security universe
main multiverse restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe main
multiverse restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates universe main
multiverse restricted

If this isn't a problem, and my sources.list is configured, more or
less the way it's supposed to  then that means all these updates are
legitimately for Hardy.  In that case I subscribe to the newsletter
but the updates don't seem descriptive enough to figure out what they
do.

My questions are:
1. How else might I discover the purpose of the update?  What is going
on that warrants a new kernel update every 2 weeks or a month tops(I
understand if that is too open-ended a question to answer).

2. Last question: Should I hold on to all the old ones, or when can I
determine it's safe to remove them?
--
Patience yields far greater results than brute force or rage ever
could so relax......it's just life !!!