I tried to check my libssh-dev version by running the following command:
user@client56:~$ dpkg -l | grep libssh
ii libssh-4:amd64 0.6.3-4.3ubuntu0.5 amd64 tiny C SSH library (OpenSSL flavor)
ii libssh-dev 0.6.3-4.3ubuntu0.5 amd64 tiny C SSH library. Development files (OpenSSL flavor)
ii libssh-gcrypt-4:amd64 0.6.3-4.3ubuntu0.5 amd64 tiny C SSH library (gcrypt flavor)
I see "0.6.3-4.3ubuntu0.5" but I'm not sure how to interpret it. I suppose the version is 0.6.3. But what does 4.3 and 0.5 mean?
Also, how do I properly uninstall libssh so that I can manually install the latest version (0.9.4 at the time of writing) from the source tarballs? Or is there are a way to upgrade to the latest version from the version already installed?
EDIT: The number 4.3 refers to the debian version of the package and 0.5 refers to the Ubuntu version of the debian package. More information can be found here: What is the meaning of the XubuntuY string in Ubuntu package names?
