Linux see distribution version

How to know which Linux Distribution I’m using? [closed]

Moved to https://superuser.com/questions/80251/how-to-know-which-linux-distribution-im-using How to know which Linux Distribution I’m using? uname -a gives Linux xxxxxx.net 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL.wh1smp #1 SMP Fri Aug 14 15:48:17 MDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux How can I know this is Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora or Redhat? I uses /etc/init.d/serviced restart for restarting serevices, seems it is not Redhat family Update:

[~]$ cat /etc/issue cat: /etc/issue: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/issue.net cat: /etc/issue.net: No such file or directory [~]$ lsb_release -a -sh: lsb_release: command not found [~]$ cat /etc/*-release cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*-version cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*release cat: /etc/*release: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*_release cat: /etc/*_release: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*version cat: /etc/*version: No such file or directory [~]$ 

If you are looking for a reliable way to make your program behave accordingly on any given distribution, I’d suggest updating your question before its migrated.

6 Answers 6

You could also try /etc/*-version

[itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-release cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-version cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory

If you have lsb_release command,

will tell you (or just use lsb_release -i ).

Edit: Looks like you’re on a Red Hat system. A google search on your uname output suggests so. This is not programmatic, of course!

lsb_relase was created to ease the pain of determining the distro easily from within a program. A lot of systems out in the wild and still in use lack this altogether.

You’re right. If someone is using that old a distribution, the first step should probably be to upgrade to a more recent version! 🙂

/etc/issue or /etc/issue.net give a good clue. Newer distros provide /etc/lsb-release which make it easier to determine exact strings progmatically, i.e. distro name / major & minor release / web site, etc.

In the absence of /etc/lsb-release, its much more difficult, hence the creation of lsb-release.

As Alok said, it looks like you are on a rather ancient (or extremely sparse) system. I don’t think this is a case that you can (reliably) progmatically determine with a few lines of code.

If all else fails, check to see what kind of package manager is in use (apt / rpm / others), check to see if /etc/init.d is a symlink (rpm / RH distros) or a directory (debian based distros) .. and you have a pretty good clue as to what you can expect to be present in the root file system as far as structure.

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How to Find Which Linux Version You Are Running

Logged in on a Linux system via SSH and wondering which Linux distribution is it? Here’s how to check the Linux version.

When you install a Linux distribution on your own, you know which distribution and version it is.

But if you use SSH to log in to a remote Linux server provided by an enterprise or client, you may wonder which Linux distribution and version it is.

The simplest way to check Linux version is to see the content of the /etc/os-release file:

It will show an output similar to this:

NAME="Ubuntu" VERSION="20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)" ID=ubuntu ID_LIKE=debian PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS" VERSION_ID="20.04" HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/" SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/" PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy" VERSION_CODENAME=focal UBUNTU_CODENAME=focal

As you can see, the Linux name is Ubuntu and the version is 20.04.1.

However, that’s not the only way to know the Linux distribution details. In this beginner’s tip, I’ll show you different ways to check which Linux you are running.

Find Linux distribution details

Method 1: Use /etc/os-release file

If you are familiar with the Linux directory structure, you probably already know that /etc directory contains the core configuration files of the system.

The os-release file in the /etc directory keeps the information about the Linux distribution. It gives you the distribution name, distribution version, release name or ID.

Here’s what it displays for Alpine Linux server running on Linode infrastructure.

handbook:~# cat /etc/os-release NAME="Alpine Linux" ID=alpine VERSION_ID=3.12.0 PRETTY_NAME="Alpine Linux v3.12" HOME_URL="https://alpinelinux.org/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.alpinelinux.org/"

As you can see, the name of Linux distribution is Alpine Linux and the distribution version is 3.12.

The content of the /etc/os-release is usually different for different distributions. Distributions often use it to provide additional information like where to get support or file bugs etc.

For example, the /etc/os-release provides more lines for CentOS Linux.

NAME="CentOS Linux" VERSION="8 (Core)" ID="centos" ID_LIKE="rhel fedora" VERSION_ID="8" PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8" PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 8 (Core)" ANSI_COLOR="0;31" CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:8" HOME_URL="https://www.centos.org/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/" CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-8" CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="8" REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="centos" REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="8" 

However, all of them provide the Linux distribution name and version so it is a pretty reliable way to know which Linux you are running. In fact, it is the most reliable way.

Method 2: Use hostnamectl command

Most Linux distributions these days use systemd. On such a system, you can use the hostnamectl command to get Linux version detail.

For the same CentOS system that you saw above, hostnamectl provides the following details:

[[email protected] ~]# hostnamectl Static hostname: localhost.localdomain Transient hostname: li2498-99.members.linode.com Icon name: computer-vm Chassis: vm Machine ID: e3fe2be3e17be3e1763bf43e8337e68b Boot ID: 33d3052bbffd44b1869bbffd4b00d26c Virtualization: kvm Operating System: CentOS Linux 8 (Core) CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:centos:centos:8 Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-147.8.1.el8_1.x86_64 Architecture: x86-64

You can see the Linux version detail in the line starting with ‘Operating System’.

The hostnamectl command is primarily used for dealing with the hostname but if it provides other details why not use it?

Method 3: Use lsb-release command

This is NOT a command that you’ll find in all Linux distributions. I think it is mostly used by Debian/Ubuntu based distributions.

You can use the lsb_release command with option -a and it will provide distribution details:

Don’t mind the No LSB modules are available line. It’s not an error of any kind.

[email protected]:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS Release: 20.04 Codename: focal

Bonus Tip: Find Linux kernel version

Now that you know which distribution you are running, perhaps you would also like to know about the Linux kernel version running on the system.

You can get the kernel details using the uname command in any Linux distribution.

The output shows only the Linux kernel version:

handbook:~# uname -r 5.4.43-1-virt

No prizes for guessing that the above system is running on Linux kernel version 5.4.43.

I hope you find this quick tip helpful in finding Linux version detail. If you have questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comment section.

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How to get Linux distribution name and version?

You might want to edit the title to make it clear the question is about doing it from C source, not as a script writer or user at the command line.

@Kolob Those were most emphatically not «more sensible» for this question; I have rolled back your change.

9 Answers 9

+1 this finally was «standardized» among the distro’s. Go back far enough though and this file doesn’t exist, instead each distro put their own file like /etc/redhat-release.

This will only work on LSB compliant Linux distributions, but is not guaranteed to work on non-compliant distributions. OTOH, it will also work on other LSB compliant non-Linux Unices. E.g. I’m pretty sure it won’t work on Adroid.

Note that on e.g. Gentoo Linux lsb_release is not always present by default. I just checked, and it’s provided by an optional package sys-apps/lsb-release, currently not installed on my system.

Will lsb-release works on all the follow Distrubtions?: Debian / Ubuntu | Red Hat Enterprise / Fedora Linux / Suse Linux / Cent OS ?

on my system yields the following from the bash (terminal) prompt:

Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS 2.6.32-41-generic x86_64 

I believe uname -mr returns the version of the Linux Kernel, so ‘lsb_release -ds’ should be all you need for the release name and version, assuming the description format is consistent across releases. Thanks, I was wondering how you were supposed to use the short parameter, I was trying it ‘lsb_release -s’ and was wondering why it was failing. Cheers!

trying this way is an interesting one and less restrictive than lsb-release.

This is the best answer, to only retrieve the name of the distro one can do: cat /etc/*-release | grep ID | head -n1 | cut -d ‘=’ -f2

What’s the purpose of getting that information?

If you’re trying to detect some features or properties of the system (e.g. does it support some syscall or does it have some library), instead of relying on output of lsb_release you should either:

• try to use given features and fail gracefully (e.g. dlopen for libraries, syscall(2) for syscalls and so on)
• make it a part of your ./configure check if applicable (standard FOSS way of automatically recognizing system features/properties)

Note that the first way above applies even if your software is binary-only.

 dl = dlopen(module_path, RTLD_LAZY); if (!dl) < fprintf(stderr, "Failed to open module: %s\n", module_path); return; >funcptr = dlsym(dl, module_function); if (!funcptr) < fprintf(stderr, "Failed to find symbol: %s\n", module_function); return; >funcptr(); dlclose(dl); 

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