Comments on: Find which Debian or ubuntu Linux Version you are running

By: nxegr

nxegr — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 08:52:40 +0000

the cmd lsb_release -a ,for unbutu is useful.

By: stasik

stasik — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:44:24 +0000

on debian wheezy i type in the console: lsb_release -d
i still dont know how to check the version (6.0.3 or something like that)

By: Francis

Francis — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:11:31 +0000

Why not look at /proc/version ?

On Ubuntu:
Linux version 2.6.24-27-server (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu4)) #1 SMP Wed Mar 24 10:39:18 UTC 2010

On Debian:
Linux version 2.6.26-2-686 (Debian 2.6.26-15) (dannf@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.3 20080704 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-25)) #1 SMP Thu Mar 26 01:08:11 UTC 2009

That should be a reliable way of finding out ….

By: kiran kumar

kiran kumar — Fri, 20 May 2011 05:44:51 +0000

Thankq for your information. its help full.

By: athensguy

athensguy — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:16:41 +0000

@V uname -r reveals the Linux kernel version. For example:


# uname -r
2.6.35-28-generic

By: goodtimetribe

goodtimetribe — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 04:49:31 +0000

Per the Debian documentation, if the /etc/debian_version file does not exist, then it was not installed from official Debian installation disks.

http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-software.en.html#s-isitdebian

However, any of the LSB files should be there as LSB is Linux Standard Base. If for some reason you find yourself without it (i guess it could happen, in Lenny? i doubt it…) , install the package.

By: sharif jamadar

sharif jamadar — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:02:50 +0000

i want todays version of obuntu linux. i have seminar on obuntu linux so pls help me

By: V

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:55:57 +0000

My install does not have a debian_version file, OR a lsb_release file in /etc. The scripts fail. Even uname -a doesn't tell me which version of Debian Linux I am running... it just tells me what my KDE version is, plus letting me know as an aside that I'm running Linux. I swear to you it is a Lenny Debian distro of the linux operating system. I know it's 5.*.* but that's about it. I vaguely remember that aptitude has some kind of clever trick for finding out what version of linux you are running, but I checked the aptitude help files and no dice. Help? Here's the output to uname -a Linux mcgee 2.6.26-2-686 #1 SMP Thu Sep 16 19:35:51 UTC 2010i686 GNU/Linux I know that I'm not running Debian version 2.6.26. That's absurd. Besides, I've done this before, (used uname) and it's even told me that it's Lenny and everything. I'm stumped.

By: freebourg

freebourg — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:10:30 +0000

As checked today, “/etc/debian_version” contains the version number.

I think you didn’t read the post correctly. Don’t use “/etc/debian_version” to know your Ubuntu version.

On Lenny, this file contains: 5.0.6
and on Ubuntu 10.04.1 this file is filled with “squeeze/sid”, which is correct because Ubuntu is built on Debian Testing.

Good point BiSScuiTT. I think the lsb_release script just reads that so sourcing this is the best way to do it.

By: BiSScuiTT

BiSScuiTT — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:04:48 +0000

For scripting a quick and easy way would be to source /etc/lsb-release. This will make all the variables in /etc/lsb-release available to the script.

Example:

#! /bin/bash
source /etc/lsb-release
echo $DISTRIB_RELEASE

By: dan

dan — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:38:47 +0000

on debian:
uname -a
debian version:
cat /etc/debian_version

By: L33tCh

L33tCh — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:32:05 +0000

Don’t need to cut for ubuntu… just ‘lsb_release -sr’ does the trick.

By: labilbe

labilbe — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Thank you!
Exactly what I needed.

By: Dragon Slayer

Dragon Slayer — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:38:48 +0000

Or you could run this
http://programs.rcrnet.net/#version

By: Darin

Darin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:47:05 +0000

If you just need the version number (for scripting, etc), you can do something like this:

VERSION=`lsb_release -sd | cut -c 8-`
echo Configuring for Ubuntu ${VERSION}…

By: Felipe

Felipe — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:57:14 +0000

I’ve found much better the firefox way rather than the console one.

While the /etc/debian_version file just says : “testing/unstable”

the other one gives me a lot of info about my OS.

By: Ionut

Ionut — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:29:46 +0000

Firefox’s About dialog also contains the operating system:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071204 Ubuntu/7.10 (gutsy) Firefox/2.0.0.11

By: Darshak

Darshak — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 11:46:21 +0000

Not sure if it always works, but Firefox’s default home page contains a welcome message with the version number.