Linux check linux kernel version

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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3 Ways to Check Linux Kernel Version in Command Line

Last updated October 29, 2020 By Abhishek Prakash 25 Comments

Brief: Wondering which Linux kernel version your system uses? Here are several ways to check your kernel version in the Linux terminal.

You may find yourself in a situation where you need to know the exact Linux kernel version being used on your system. Thanks to the powerful Linux command line, you can easily find that out.

Quick way to check Linux kernel version

You can use the following command to get the Linux kernel version:

uname -r

There are other ways to get even more detailed information about kernel. Read the rest of the article to learn it in detail.

In this article, I’ll show you various methods for finding out your kernel version and tell you what those numbers actually mean. If you prefer videos, here’s a quick one. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Linux tips.

How to find Linux kernel version

I am using Ubuntu while writing this article. But these commands are generic and can be used on Fedora, Debian, CentOS, SUSE Linux or any other Linux distribution.

1. Find Linux kernel using uname command

uname is the Linux command for getting system information. You can also use it to find out whether you’re using a 32-bit or 64-bit system.

Open a terminal and type in the following command:

The output will be something similar to this:

This means that you’re running Linux kernel 4.4.0-97, or in more generic terms, you are running Linux kernel version 4.4.

But what do the other digits mean here? Let me explain:

• 4 – Kernel version
• 4 – Major revision
• 0 – Minor revision
• 97 – Bug fix
• generic – Distribution-specific string. For Ubuntu, it means I’m using the desktop version. For Ubuntu server edition, it would be ‘server’.

You can also use the uname command with the option -a. This will provide more system information if you need it.

The output of the command should like this:

Let me explain the output and what it means:

• Linux – Kernel name. If you run the same command on BSD or macOS, the result will be different.
• itsfoss – Hostname.
• 4.4.0-97-generic – Kernel release (as we saw above).
• #120-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 19 17:28:18 UTC 2017 – This means that Ubuntu has compiled 4.4.0-97-generic 120 times. A timestamp for the last compilation is also there.
• x86_64 – Machine architecture.
• x86_64 – Processor architecture.
• x86_64 – Operating system architecture (you can run a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit processor).
• GNU/Linux – Operating system (and no, it won’t show the distribution name).

But I’ll save you from information overload. Let’s see some other commands to find your Linux kernel version.

2. Find Linux kernel using /proc/version file

In Linux, you can also find the kernel information in the file /proc/version. Just look at the contents of this file:

You’ll see an output similar to what you saw with uname.

You can see the kernel version 4.4.0-97-generic here.

3. Find Linux kernel version using dmesg commad

dmesg is a powerful command used for writing kernel messages. It’s also very useful for getting system information.

Since dmesg provides an awful lot of information, you should normally use a command like less to read it. But since we’re here just to check the Linux kernel version, grepping on ‘Linux’ should give the desired output.

The output will have a few lines but you should be able to identify the Linux kernel version there easily.

How do you check your Linux kernel version and other information?

Of the three ways discussed here, I use uname all the time. It’s the most convenient.

What about you? Which command do you prefer for getting Linux kernel information?

Like what you read? Please share it with others.

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Verify the Kernel Version on Linux Servers

In this article and related video, we will be discussing how to check the kernel version in both Ubuntu and CentOS Linux. The following command works with all Linux distributions, such as Red Hat, CentOS, Debian, and Ubuntu. It also works on other UNIX-like operating systems such as HPUX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, etc. Use the following command to check which Linux kernel version your server is currently running.

Here’s the code to run from the command line.

uname -r
You should receive a result similar to the following.

The kernel version output from above can be interpreted with the following key:
2.6.32-431.11.2.el6.x86_64
2	=	The Main Kernel Version
6	=	The Major Revision
32	=	The Minor Revision
431.11.2.el6	=	The Minor Fix/Revision Detail

For more information and options, we can review the manual page (or simply the man page) for uname. The man page provides the following additional information.

NAME: uname — print system information
SYNOPSIS: uname [OPTION].
DESCRIPTION: Print certain system information. With no OPTION, same as -s.
-a, —all
print all information, in the following order, except omit -p and -i if unknown:
-s, —kernel-name
print the kernel name
-n, —nodename
print the network node hostname
-r, —kernel-release
print the kernel release
-v, —kernel-version
print the kernel version
-m, —machine
print the machine hardware name
-p, —processor
print 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
Full documentation at:
or available locally via: info ‘(coreutils) uname invocation’

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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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6 ways to check Linux kernel version

Published: February 7, 2017 | Modified: June 15, 2020

Learn how to check the Linux kernel version using the command line. Helpful commands to check your kernel versions, releases, codenames, etc.

This post aims at checking your Linux kernel version using commands. We will be discussing different ways to fetch this data from your system. Below is a list of commands which can be used to get Linux kernel version details.

You can use below 7 ways to gather info about your distribution like kernel version in CentOS, RHEL, SUSE, OEL, Ubuntu, Debian Linux. All the below outputs are from my test machine running CentOS 7.

1. By reading version process file.

This gives you running kernel version.

3.10.0-693.5.2.el7.x86_64 is your current kernel distribution version.

2. By reading Distro release file in /etc

Almost all distributions of Linux come with a release file in /etc which contains the kernel version, release details in it. Its a text file hence cat can be used to read its content.

OR simple use wildcard so that you can list the release file of any distro. All distro keeps diff filenames so using wildcard will be wise. In some distro, you will see /etc/os-release or /etc/system-release files as well. All these files will be covered when using wild cards.

3. By listing release package

This command works for RPM-based systems like RHEL, SUSE, OEL, CentOS, etc. Search and grep for release which will show you release package. This package name convention includes release number in it.

4. Using uname command

This command works on all flavors of Linux. You can use it on RHEL, SUSE, OEL, Debian, Ubuntu, etc.

This value indicates your current kernel version.

5. Using lsb_release command

lsb_release command is provided by redhat-lsb package. You need to install redhat-lsb package in order to use this command on RHEL, CentOS or Fedora systems.

6. Using hostnamectl command

In newer kernels, hostnamectl command is introduced. Using this command without any argument will show you all details about your kernel. You can use it to set your hostname as well.

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