[bitfolk] Upgrading ubuntu

So I've been a bit of a slacker and fallen behind on OS upgrades. This is where I am: james:~$ uname -a Linux www 2.6.18-6-xen-686 #1 SMP Sun Feb 10 22:43:13 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux james:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 8.10 Release: 8.10 Codename: intrepid Will I hit kernel problems if I upgrade the OS without the kernel, or the kernel without the OS? Is there a recommended/tested kernel package? Thanks James