Linux all versions names

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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Curious Case Of Linux Distribution Code Names

Last updated January 20, 2019 By Abhishek Prakash 39 Comments

Have you ever wondered about the code name of the latest release of your favorite Linux distribution?

The upcoming Linux Mint 18 has been codenamed Sarah. Ubuntu 16.04 will be called Xenial Xerus. The list goes on like that.

The question about the code-names is really trivial. It doesn’t make any difference to how a particular Linux distribution function. Yet, as a curious Linux user, you might want to know the logic behind codename of a release. After all, the code name is an integral part of a release and the dev team puts an effort for that as well, isn’t it?

I am going to tell you about the logic behind code naming of some of the most popular Linux distributions. Sit tight, this is going to be a fun ride 🙂

Ubuntu version numbering and codenaming

One of the most popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu follows a biannual release cycle with one release coming in April and other in October.

There is an interesting story behind this naming convention. Mark Shuttleworth and Robert Collins were discussing about the first version of Ubuntu.

lifeless: how long before we make a first release?

sabdfl: it would need to be punchy. six months max.

lifeless: six months! thats not a lot of time for polish.

sabdfl: so we’ll have to nickname it the warty warthog release.

In the above discussion, lifeless is Robert Collins and sabdfl is Mark Shuttleworth. The name stuck. The first mailing list for the Ubuntu team was called “warthogs“, and the team used to hang out on #warthogs on irc.freenode.net.

The month and year of the release play a vital role in the version number of an Ubuntu release. An Ubuntu release has version number of the format XX.YY. The XX is the year of the release and YY is the month of the release. So, we get Ubuntu 16.04 in the 4th month (April) of the year 2016. Ubuntu 15.10 was released in the 10th month (October) of the year 2015.

So far, there has only been one exception to the Ubuntu releases in either April or October in the past 11 years. The release of Ubuntu 6.04 was delayed for two months and this is the reason why it was named Ubuntu 6.06, instead of the usual XX.04 or XX.10.

[Tweet “Ubuntu 6.06 is the only release which was delayed in the last 11 years.”]

Now coming to the code naming of Ubuntu. You may have noticed that any Ubuntu release has a two worded code name that starts with the same letter. For example, Ubuntu 14.04 is called Trusty Tahr (starting with a T).

Ubuntu code names are indeed made of two words, first being an adjective and the second being an endangered species (lately it also contains mythological creatures such as Unicorn or Werewolf). In the previous example, Trusty is an adjective meaning some who could be trusted while Tahr is an animal with some of their sub-species considered to be endangered.

Another interesting fact is that these code names are incremented alphabetically in each release (except the few in the beginning). So, we have Ubuntu 14.04 as Trusty Tahr, Ubuntu 14.10 as Utopic Unicorn, Ubuntu 15.04 as Vivid Vervet and so on.

I presume that now you have a pretty good understanding of Ubuntu version numbering and codenames. If I have to summarize all of the releases, they go like:

So, as you can see, following Ubuntu releases improve your English vocabulary and introduce you to species you might not have heard of 🙂 If you prefer videos, here is a video explaining Ubuntu naming convention:

Linux Mint version numbering and codenaming

The distant cousin of Ubuntu (if I may call it that), Linux Mint is another popular Linux distribution. Now, let’s dig into the version numbering and code-naming of Linux Mint.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. So, a couple of months after an Ubuntu release, a Linux Mint releases comes up based on that Ubuntu release.

Unlike Ubuntu, Linux Mint versioning doesn’t follow the month and year. It is simply incremental. So, we have Linux Mint 15 then Linux Mint 16, Linux Mint 17 and so on. This is for major releases. The minor releases (loose analogy to service pack in Windows), are incremented in decimal points. So, that gives us Linux Mint 17.1, 17.2 etc.

That was about version number, let’s talk about the code names. Each of the Linux Mint releases, be it minor or major, has a code name. And like Ubuntu, they too are in an incremental alphabetical order.

One more interesting thing about Linux Mint codenames is that these female names ending with alphabet ‘a’ and the names have origin in the mythology of Abrahamic religion. That gives us names like Linux Mint 17 Qiana etc.

The major releases increment the alphabetical order of the codename while the minor ones carry the same starting alphabets but change the name. For example, Linux Mint 17.1 is Rebecca, 17.2 is Rafaela and 17.3 is Rosa.

To summarize all the Linux Mint releases so far, here is a table:

Sarah is the only exception in the list that doesn’t end with an ‘a’.

elementary OS version and codenaming

Since we are talking about Ubuntu and Linux Mint, let’s extend this family and include elementary OS (also based on Ubuntu) in the discussion.

elementary OS has version numbers that match the incremental pattern like 0.X. So, the first stable release of elementary OS was 0.1 and then came 0.2 and the current stable version is elementary OS 0.3.

As far as the codename is concerned, elementary OS prefers to have a mythological god’s or goddess’ name. Usually these names are taken from Roman/Nordic mythology. This gives us codenames like Jupiter, Luna, Freya (earlier ISIS) and perhaps the upcoming Loki.

There are no alphabetical constraints here.

0.1 — Jupiter
0.2 — Luna
0.3 — Freya

Debian version and codenaming

Let’s switch to granddaddy of Ubuntu, Linux Mint and elementary OS. Debian, of which Ubuntu has been derived, has a very curious naming system. In fact, Debian itself was named after its founder Ian and his girlfriend Debra. Debian founder Ian Murdock died mysteriously last year but his name has been immortalized in Debian.

Debian version numbers are incremental. That’s not the interesting part. The interesting fact is that all Debian releases are codenamed after the characters of the Toy Story movie. That explains why you have Debian Jessie or Debian Woody.

[Tweet “#LinuxFacts : Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters.”]

Here is a table for a quick glance on all the Debian releases and their codename:

And if you have watched the first Toy Story movie, you might remember the villain of the movie Sid. This neighborhood kid is a destroyer of toys. This is why all Debian unstable releases are codenamed Debian Sid.

I think there are plenty of characters in the Toy Story movie series so we should not run out of codenames for future Debian releases 🙂

OpenSUSE version and codenaming

The first OpenSUSE release in 2005 was OpenSUSE 10.1. I do not know why it started with 10 and not 1. But ever since, the major release increases the version number before the decimal while the minor releases increase the version number after decimal points. This gives us version numbers like OpenSUSE 11.3, 11.4, 12.1, 12.2 etc.

Initial releases of OpenSUSE did not have a codename. It was with the release of OpenSUSE 11.2 that we start seeing a codename.

Needless to say that OpenSUSE has a green aura to it. This greenish touch is extended to the codenames as well. OpenSUSE codenames are actually a shade of the color green. That explains the codenames like Emerald, Teal etc for OpenSUSE.

11.3 — Teal
11.4 — Celadon
12.1 — Asparagus
12.2 — Mantis
12.3 — Dartmouth
13.1 — Bottle
13.2 — Harlequin
Leap 42.1 — Malachite

Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of these shades of green before. And if you think maybe OpenSUSE will run out of codenames in future, I say stay positive. If there can be fifty shades of grey, there can be plenty for green as well 🙂

Your take?

What’s your take on codenames? Do you think it is easier to remember a release with the codename than a version number? Do you think codenames are needed at all? Which Linux distribution’s codename pattern you like the most? Feel free to express your views in the comment box below.

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