How to check what linux version

How to Check OS Version in Linux

Linux version can be checked using inbuilt commands or can read from specific files. It is important to determine the distribution name and version on many occasion like when doing package updates or OS update.

There are a lot of Linux distributions available like Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Mint, Arch, Fedora, RHEL, and more.

In this tutorial, I will show how to check the Linux version from the command line.

Check Linux Version

There are mainly 5 ways we can get Linux distribution name and its version.

1. From /etc/os-release

Use cat command to read the content of the file /etc/os-release , run the following command:

Output from CentOS

Output from Ubuntu

2. Using lsb_release command

The lsb_release -a displays the Linux version information from the command line. The output will display distribution ID, description, release and codename. To display only the description you can use lsb_release -d .

If you get «command not found» and then you need to install ‘lsb-core’ package.

Output of lsb_release -a

To display only the description, run:

3. Using Hostnamectl command

In modern Linux distributions which use systemd init systems, you can use hostnamectl command to display operating system version.

4. From /etc/issue file

You can get version information from /etc/issue file, to read file content use cat or less command:

5. From /etc/*release or /etc/*version

Some distribution use release and version file and those files are specific to that distro.

$ echo /etc/*version /etc/*release
/etc/debian_version /etc/ec2_version /etc/lsb-release /etc/os-release

To read the content from /etc/*release or /etc/*version, run the following command:

If you are interested to know the Linux kernel version and architecture then use uname command or you can read the content from /proc/version file.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned different ways to find Linux OS name and version from I hope you enjoyed reading and please leave your suggestion in the below comment section.

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How To Find Out My Linux Distribution Name and Version

H ow do I find out what version of Linux distribution I am using from the shell (bash) prompt? How can I tell my Linux distribution name and version using command-line options over ssh-based session?

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	lsb_release
Est. reading time	2 minutes

You can use any one of the following method to find out your Linux distribution and name:
a] /etc/*-release file.

b] lsb_release command

c] /proc/version file.

d] hostnamectl command

Method 1. Use /etc/*-release file to display Linux distro version

To find out what version of Linux (distro) you are running, enter the following cat command at the shell prompt:
$ cat /etc/*-release
Sample output from my RHEL v5.x server:

Sample outputs from my Ubuntu Linux v7.10 server:

Method 2. Use lsb_release command To find out Linux distribution name and version

The lsb_release command displays certain LSB (Linux Standard Base) and distribution-specific information. Type the following command:
$ lsb_release -a
Sample outputs:

Method 3. Use hostnamectl to find out my Linux distribution name and version

For GNU systemd based distro this is the best option:
$ hostnamectl

What version of Linux am I running?

How do I find out My Linux kernel version?

Type the following uname command:
$ uname -a
OR
$ uname -mrs
Sample outputs:

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1. Linux – Kernel name
2. 2.6.32-5-amd64 – Kernel version number
3. x86_64 – Machine hardware name (64 bit)

Here is output from my SUSE Enterprise Linux server:

Get Linux distribution name and version number in a shell

Say hello to /proc/version

Type the following command to see kernel version and gcc version used to build the same:
$ cat /proc/version
Sample outputs:

Another outputs from my CentOS 7 box:

And SUSE Enterprise Linux server:

Related media

This tutorial is also available in a quick video format:

Putting It All Together

Animated gif.01: Finding out Linux distribution name and version with various commands demo

Conclusion

This page showed various commands to figure out what Linux kernel version and Linux distribution your server/desktop/laptop is running.

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Comments on this entry are closed.

But how to find version of other unix systems like FreeBSD. cat /etc/*-release won’t give it

Thanks for giving command cat /etc/*-release
Really this is useful

For FreeBSD uname -a works OK

Well, the article was entitled “HowTo: Find Out My Linux Distribution Name and Version”… 🙂

Generally speaking, “uname -a” will tell you what you need to know. You may need to know a couple of quirks about the O.S. in question. For example, Solaris calls itself “SunOS” (long history there). AIX breaks the version number up into two different uname fields (“5 2” instead of “5.2” – it might even be “2 5” IIRC, which you then have to know to turn into “5.2”). Solaris has an /etc/release.

If you’re going to use /etc/*-release, I would loose the dash

as you’ll pick up a couple more flavors of Unix like that.

“uname” was supposed to be the universal way to do this sort of thing, however, the output varies way too much from vendor to vendor.

PS: Technically, Solaris is a “package deal” consisting of an operating system, an X-Windows package, etc. – 5 things that previously they had not bundled together. So, technically, Solaris 10 (for example) contains an operating system called SunOS 5.10. So when Solaris says “SunOS” in uname, it’s not really incorrect.

This isn’t exactly a general solution. It assumes the distribution supports some LSB stuff, I think.
For debian and slackware, one could try:

On debian stable, lsb-release exists, but just isn’t in /etc/. There is an lsb-release package, and you can run:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r1 (etch)
Release: 4.0r1
Codename: etch

By the way, lsb_release -a also works on the older Ubuntu version I have.

You can also cat version in proc…

:; cd /proc
;; cat version
Linux version 2.6.9-42.0.3.ELsmp (brewbuilder@hs20-bc1-7.build.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-3)) #1 SMP Mon Sep 25 17:28:02 EDT 2006

Thanks Richard,
cat /proc/version worked for me..

Thanks alot ! all commands gave some good info about my sys.

And “cat /etc/issue” as well, for my ubuntu 8

Well, that’s all fine well and good for home use, but security people will tell you announcing your o.s. and version in /etc/issue is a bad idea (why give hackers that info?). They will want you to replace /etc/issue with some kind of warning notification (“This computer is only for use by authorized employees of company X. Usage is subject to monitoring. All users are expected to comply with company security policy Y. Unauthorized use is subject is grounds for termination and/or criminal prosecution.”, etc.). Any computer owned by a company that has security people or lawyers, this isn’t going to work on. 🙂

thanx richy. it works

Thanks for the quick command. Worked perfectly.

hi guys,
can this kind of file which contains the version info be modified? for example when I want to remaster Ubuntu to new name with my name: Maxx

do we just to modify a file? or what should we do?

thanks in advance!

hai ,
i read ur information for linux.but, i want “what r the different versions available in linux”.please give ans immediately

would you also like a foot massage with that ??

Ha ha.. Nice one Bro

Please specify the which Linux ? Redhat or else….

Thanks Daniel, that helped on FreeBSD

Hi Daniel, I think your solution will only give the hostname, Kernel, arhitecture etc, but NOT the “distribution name” as is quoted on the question. Havent checked on anyother distro, but at least thats what happens on my CentOS 5.4, the other solutions seem to work.

]# uname -a
Linux myhostname.mydomanin.com 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:33:56 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Thanks. Was digging few old linux machines and found this works. Running very old ubuntu 😉

I’m on rhel .. if I type cat /etc/*release I get:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 4 (Nahant Update 3)

but if I type cat /proc/version I get:
Linux version 2.6.9-34.0.1.EL.ADSKsmp (root@oka) (gcc version 3.4.4 20050721 (Red Hat 3.4.4-2))

I’m confused 🙁 so what’s my distribution??

Your distribution is RHEL and your kernel version is 2.6.9-34.0.1.

Both are different.

hi guys
please tyr
FOR UNIX:
#cat /etc/issue
#cat /etc/*-release
#cat /proc/version
#uname -a

FOR Debai/slackware:
#cat /etc/*version

/etc/issue works for Debian too! I use something like this:

This solution works perfect.

Nice example!
Anyhow I can not see why needed the [A-Za-z] part. Please let me know.
So here are the roots of a brand new all platformer ver.sh one-liner…. B-)

cd /etc && cat *_ver* *-rel* /proc/version && uname -a && lsb_release -a

Let us know what does it miss?? (I know – this must be considered as pre-alpha version. B-) some file and command availability should be implemented…)

…. OK – sorry for the OT-like summary here.
—
R

I typed this in and it worked: cat /proc/version

And this came up : Linux version 2.6.34houkouonchi-web100-ioat-vlan (root@houkouonchi) (gcc version 4.1.2 (Gentoo 4.1.2)) #1 SMP Thu Oct 14 16:27:09 PDT 2010

What distro would this be. I am running my linux through a data center that I have access to.

Oh it would be Gentoo. THANKS! answered my own question =P

thank u .. it works

Thanks, Its really a great tips

smarcell – you are so clever. I am in awe.

but when I type that into the little white box thing, it just says “cat /etc/lsb-release.d: Is a directory”

and I still have no idea what my OS is ;-P

maxx – no you don’t want to change these files or try; what you want to do is something like (just an e.g.) in

/etc/rc.local
#!/bin/sh
#other stuff will be here probably, put your stuff at the end

echo “Hello, you’ve just successfully gained access to Maxx’s computer” > /etc/motd
cat /proc/version >> /etc/motd
echo `uname -a` >> /etc/motd

and so on. you are printing text and the output of programs to the file /etc/motd using shell syntax (the little backticks mean “interpret as a command to run” and echo means “print this” and > means “create a file and send this to it” and “>> means append this to the end of this file”

generally, motd will be printed on login (“message of the day”, quite old school, some systems might not have it I guess. My Scientific Linux 6.1 does. I think ubuntu does. maybe not.)

if not, you can make it yourself and have it in everyone’s .bashrc by editing /etc/skel. For that matter you can put anything you want in .bashrc or .profile and it will run whevever a shell is opened (a bash shell obviously).

/proc isn’t usually somewhere you want to write, unless you know why you are doing it.

please send me linux versions and release dates

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