Hi milhouse,
Any given release branch is either long-lived or short-lived. The difference is in how long the branch is maintained and how many releases are made from each branch. A short-lived branch typically has only one or two (non-beta) releases, while long-lived branches will have several.
So both 410 and 418 are long-lived branches, and the releases for 410.104 and 418.43 just reflect that – some customers are still using the 410 series and don’t want to move to 418, so we made a release from that branch even though a newer long-lived branch is available.
When we make changes to the driver, we evaluate the oldest branch the change needs to go into. New features go into whatever the latest branch is, while bug fixes go into the older branches and are integrated through the newer branches. So using a short-lived branch doesn’t mean that you miss out on fixes, it just means that you also get the latest features.
The sticky post lists the latest releases from the current short- and long-lived branches.
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/533434/linux/current-graphics-driver-releases/
If you want a list of releases from all branches, including older long-lived branches, look here:
https://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-amd64-display-archive.html