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Check OS Version in Ubuntu with Terminal
Linux is opensource and free operating system available today. When installing software packages and security patches the operating system version is important. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to check the OS version in Ubuntu with Terminal.
Check OS Version in Ubuntu
You can check the OS version by using the following lsb_release command:
lsb_release -a
uname can also be used to check OS version:
uname -r
By using hostnamectl the command can also be useful checking OS version:
hostnamectl
The Operating-System related information is also stored inside /etc/os-release file, to display it use the following command:
cat /etc/os-release
Examples of checking OS version
Following are the examples with output data to show the version of the operating system version:
1. lsb_release Command
LSB stands for Linux Standard Base. The lsb_release command displays information on Linux Distribution. To check the OS version you can run following lsb_release Command:
lsb_release -a
2. uname Command
You can display Linux Kernel Architecture, version, name, etc. by using uname command:
uname -srvo
The output should be:
Linux 18.04-UBUNTU #1 SMP Sat Dec 21 11:18:44 UTC 2019 GNU/Linux
Or to display only OS version type the following command:
uname -r
The output should be:
UBUNTU-18-04
3. Using /etc/os-release File Data
The /etc/os-release file contains operating system related identification data. You can simply use the cat command to show the data of etc/os-release file data:
cat /etc/os-release
4. hostnamectl Utility
The hostnamectl utility is part of SystemD used for changing hostname, we can use this utility to display information about Linux Distribution.
hostnamectl
5. /etc/*release File for Old Linux Distributions
If you are running a very old Linux Distro then maybe all the above methods will not work. So to check OS version on very old computers use the following command:
cat /etc/*release
or you can check the only version by using the following command:
cat /etc/*version
Conclusion
You have successfully learned How to Check OS Version in Ubuntu with Terminal. If you have any queries please don’t forget to comment out.