Check what linux kernel version

How To Check Linux Kernel Version

1. /proc/version – This file stores a string which identifies the kernel version. It includes the contents of /proc/sys/kernel/ostype , /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease and /proc/sys/kernel/version .

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	None
Est. reading time	1m

You can also use the following command for the same purpose:

1. uname command – Display name and information about current kernel.
2. Package manager such as rpm/yum or apt-get provides output information about the kernel.

How to find the kernel version using uname command

Open the Terminal application and type the following command to show you Linux system kernel version:
uname -r
Sample outputs:

• 2.6.32 – Linux kernel version.
• 431.1.2 – Distro specific number for bug and security fixes.

Here is another output from my Ubuntu based server:
uname -r
Sample outputs:

The following command gives a little more information about Linux kernel and machine type:
uname -mrs
Sample outputs:

Printing all information

The syntax is as follows to display all information about the current running Linux kernel:
uname -a
uname —all
Here is what I got from my Ubuntu 20.04 LTS desktop:

1. Linux – Kernel name (duh!).
2. nixcraft-wks01 – My computer name.
3. 5.4.0-65-generic – Linux kernel release name.
4. #73-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jan 18 17:25:17 UTC 2021 – Kerenl version build date. SMP indicates that mulitple CPU/CORE support.
5. x86_64 – My hardware/archicture type.

A list uname command line options

Option	Description
-a , —all	View all information, in the following order, except omit -p and -i if unknown.
—s , —kernel-name	See the kernel name
—n , —nodename	Print the network node hostname
—r , —kernel-release	Display the kernel release
—v , —kernel-version	See the kernel version
—m , —machine	Show the machine hardware name
—p , —processor	Pint the processor type (non-portable)
—i , —hardware-platform	Print the hardware platform (non-portable)
—o , —operating-system	Print the operating system
—help	Display this help and exit
—version	Output version information and exit

How to check kernel version using /proc/version file

Use the cat command to look at /proc/version file:

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How To Find Which Linux Kernel Version Is Installed On My System

I am a new proud Linux user. My question to you is – how do I check Linux Kernel version? How do I find my Linux Kernel Version installed on my PC? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Introduction : The Linux kernel is the central (core) component of Linux operating systems. Its responsibilities include managing the system’s resources and the communication between hardware and software components. It also maintains the security of your system. Hence, finding out the version information is a good idea for patching and other sysadmin management tasks.

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	None
Est. reading time	1m

Commands to find your Linux Kernel Version

To check Linux Kernel version, try the following commands:

1. uname -r : Find Linux kernel version
2. cat /proc/version : Show Linux kernel version with help of a special file
3. hostnamectl | grep Kernel : For systemd based Linux distro you can use hotnamectl to display hostname and running Linux kernel version

Let us see all commands and examples in details.

How to check kernel version on Linux server/desktop/laptop

You need to use then uname command to print certain system information including kernel name. Type the following command to print kernel version number:
$ uname -r
Sample outputs:

So my Linux kernel version is 4.15.0-39, where:

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• 4 : Kernel version
• 15 : Major revision
• 0 : Minor revision
• 39 : Patch level or number
• generic : Linux distro/kernel specific additional info

Understanding uname command options

To print certain system information you use uname command. It has the following options:

-a, OR —all	print all information
-s, OR —kernel-name	print the kernel name
-n, OR —nodename	print the network node hostname
-r, OR —kernel-release	print the Linux kernel release
-v, OR —kernel-version	print the kernel version
-m, OR —machine	print the machine hardware name
-p, OR —processor	print the processor type or “unknown”
-i, OR —hardware-platform	print the hardware platform or “unknown”
-o, OR —operating-system	print the operating system

Find Linux kernel using /proc/version file

Another option is to type the following cat command:
$ cat /proc/version
Sample outputs:

How to find your Linux Kernel version using hostnamect

Type the hostnamectl command along with grep command:
$ hostnamectl
$ hostnamectl | grep Kernel

Related media

This tutorial is also available in a quick video format:

Conclusion

You learned three diffent commands to display and show Linux kernel version on screen. For more info see the following pages too:

🐧 Get the latest tutorials on Linux, Open Source & DevOps via

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Find Linux / UNIX Kernel Version Command

H ow do I find out what kernel version I am currently running under Debian Linux or any other Linux distribution using a shell prompt? How do I find out Unix kernel version? How can I find out my Linux / UNIX kernel version using the ssh command?

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	Linux or Unix
Est. reading time	3 mintues

1. Linux Kernel version and name.
2. Print the Unix machine hardware name.
3. Find out about server processor type.
4. Display the operating system and more.

uname command to display the Linux or Unix kernel version

This command works under all Linux distributions and other UNIX-like operating systems such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, HP UX, OS X and friends. Type the following command to see running kernel version:
$ uname -r
Output taken from Linux based system:

• 2 : Kernel version
• 6 : The major revision of the kernel
• 22 : The minor revision of the kernel
• 14 : Immediate fixing / bug fixing for critical error
• generic : Distribution specific sting. For example, Redhat appends string such as EL5 to indicate RHEL 5 kernel.

Another common usage is as follows:
$ uname -mrsn
Output taken from Linux:

Here is another output from RHEL 8:

My RHEL 8 kernel version

Outputs from my OS X Unix desktop

Outputs from OpenBSD Unix server

For example, at the prompt, I type the following on AIX unix to print OS name:
uname
Sample outputs:

Common uname options

Option	Description
-a	Behave as though the options -m, -n, -r, -s, and -v were specified.
-i	Write the kernel ident to standard output.
-K	Write the FreeBSD version of the kernel.
-m	Displays the machine ID number of the hardware running the system.
-n	Write the name of the system/node to standard output.
-o	This is a synonym for the -s option, for compatibility with other systems.
-p	Displays the architecture of the system processor.
-r	Displays the release number of the operating system.
-s	Write the name of the operating system implementation to standard output.
-v	Write the version level of this release of the operating system to standard output.

How to find the kernel version with /proc/version file ( Linux only command )

You can also obtain kernel version from /proc/version file by using cat command as follows:
$ less /proc/version
$ more /proc/version
$ cat /proc/version
Sample outputs:

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Related media

See how to use uname and other commands to find the kernel version on Linux or Unix-like oses:

Package management tools ( Linux only command )

You can list all installed kernel and its version with the following command under RHEL / CentOS / Suse / Fedora Linux :
$ rpm -q kernel
Output:

If you are using Debian / Ubuntu , try:
$ dpkg —list | grep linux-image
Output:

Conclusion

We have shown you how to find the version of the Unix and Linux kernel running on your server/desktop/laptop/workstion from the command line. See uname man page here and here for more info.

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Comments on this entry are closed.

In Solaris uname -r will give you the solaris release level.
some other usefull options with uname are

uname -s [Operating system]
SunOS

uname -r [Release version]
5.8

uname -v
Generic_117350-27[OS version]

uname -a
SunOS hostname 5.8 Generic_117350-27 sun4u sparc

the last two words describes h/w name and processor respctl[equivalent to -m and -p),

I log on to different RedHat based servers, Can you please update on how to differentiate between Centos, RedHat, Oracle Linux (i.e. RedHat based distributions) sitting remotely.

# uname -a (doesn’t help)
# cat /etc/redhat-relaese (its changed to RedHat as some softwares don’t get installed otherwise.

Quite useful for beginners and mediocre persons.

i need linux fonts

cat /etc/redhat-release
this will give you redh hat version or centos version

this command return the Centos version

Newbie here….kind of got thrown in Linux admin for Centos at work due to staff reduction. Confused about something (well lots of things, but can’t seem to find the answer to this particular question).

]# rpm -qa kernel
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.15.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.19.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.28.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.29.EL
kernel-2.6.9-78.0.22.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.11.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.16.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.23.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.25.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.29.1.EL
kernel-2.6.9-78.0.5.EL
kernel-2.6.9-78.0.8.EL
kernel-2.6.9-78.0.13.EL
kernel-2.6.9-89.0.18.EL

]# uname -a
Linux xxx 2.6.9-78.0.22.EL #1 Thu Apr 30 19:03:25 EDT 2009 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

Why does rpm -qa show kernel-2.6.9-89.0.xxxxx installed but uname -a shows 2.6.9-78.00.22.EL?

I know this probably really stupid question – sorry 🙁

Send me all shell and kernel cammond of linux or unix

Life is so easy huh? 🙂

Send me all the words in the english language and their uses ( I dont claim that this line is original 😉 )

hahaha…lol…AMukh…ur reply is perfect….life is not that easy

Thank you very much all friend

Utility uname don’t have any info about OS version, only OS platform. uname -p gives
GNU/Linux… No info there are in environment variables. But I need the info like that
openSUSE 12.1 (x86_64)… How to solve this problem? I don’t want to set some environment variable manually…

can you install linux on a computer that has another operating system already installed

Yes, this is possible.

use any VM to install multiple os on same machine

I have installed “Linux mint” I want to know the complete info of my Linux version installed like Linux version kernel version

Thank U Very Much senior and all

xcuse me bro..
i wanna install fedora on VMWARE for running shell and c programming but my vmware is not listing out fedora OS .. what i should do …
It listing out “Linux Kernel 2.6.10” Is it similar to fedora ? Can i run shell scripts and c programz .

how to get the OS manufacturer,OS version,OS serial number and number of registered users on linux machine

sudo cat /etc/passwd | grep /bin/bash
UID’s 1000 and above are valid users plus UID 0 for root

dpkg –list | grep linux-image
ii linux-image-2.6.38-11-generic 2.6.38-11.50 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.38 on x86/x86_64
rc linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic 2.6.38-8.42 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.38 on x86/x86_64
ii linux-image-3.0.0-12-generic 3.0.0-12.20 Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
ii linux-image-3.0.0-16-generic 3.0.0-16.29 Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
ii linux-image-3.0.0-17-generic 3.0.0-17.30 Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
ii linux-image-generic 3.0.0.17.20 Generic Linux kernel image

what does it mean 32 or 64 bit ?

when give uname -a o/p is
Linux xxxxx 3.0.0-17-generic #30-Ubuntu SMP Thu Mar 2 17:34:21 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

when i do file on some executable it tells it 32 bit.
ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, stripped

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