How do I check the version of Ubuntu I am running?

Question

How can I check my current Ubuntu version through the command-line and GUI?

Since this came up in my search first I'll post one alternative: checking /etc/apt/sources.list and seeing what repo it's pulling from. This was the only way I could figure out what Ubuntu image I was running inside of a docker run -it --rm which apparently doesn't install lsb_release — Bratchley, Nov 07 '17 at 16:10

fedorqui · Answer 1 · 2020-12-07T10:22:16.993

713

As said in the official page, use:

lsb_release -a

Your version appears on the "Description" line. If you just want that line, type lsb_release -d.

If you want to check it through your desktop environment, you can check System Settings → Details, which shows the data like this:

Alternatives are:

hostnamectl
cat /etc/*ease

See a sample output of lsb_release, hostnamectl, and cat /etc/*ease calls:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS          # <-- here
Release:    16.04
Codename:   xenial
$ lsb_release -d
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS

$ hostnamectl 
   Static hostname: XXX
         Icon name: computer-desktop
           Chassis: desktop
        Machine ID: 3d6dcfdd7b9f41dbb62b0e8cd75014ae
           Boot ID: 4ff04a6baed54e719592f3255005a235
  Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS                # <-- here
            Kernel: Linux 4.10.0-38-generic
      Architecture: x86-64

$ cat /etc/*ease
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS"  # <--- here
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="16.04.2 LTS (Xenial Xerus)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS"
VERSION_ID="16.04"
HOME_URL="http://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
VERSION_CODENAME=xenial
UBUNTU_CODENAME=xenial

edited Dec 07 '20 at 10:22

answered Oct 16 '15 at 13:43

fedorqui

10,069

83

why is it this weird command? I can't ever remember it. Why not something like os -v. Its sort of annoying. – Charlie Parker Dec 16 '16 at 07:07
6

Seems like the 80's had a lot of good things, including simple and easy to remember UNIX commands! – João Rocha da Silva May 04 '17 at 11:01
12

Ah, in good ol' plain DOS it was simply ver – kap May 13 '17 at 15:45
1

@CharlieParker See Linux Standard Base. – Aaron D. Marasco Sep 16 '17 at 04:22
31

Ubuntu's official LTS Docker image (ubuntu:xenial) does not have lsb_release; I had to parse /etc/os_release as noted in another answer. – Aaron D. Marasco Sep 16 '17 at 04:24
9

@CharlieParker According to man lsb_release, LSB stands for Linux Standard Base. – Serge Stroobandt Sep 18 '17 at 09:19
@CharlieParker Adding the following to your .bashrc: export OS_CODE_NAME=$(lsb_release -cs); export OS_CODE_VERSION=$(lsb_release -rs) allows you do a env | grep OS, which might be a bit more convenient. – spyle Nov 29 '17 at 23:05
@kap alias ver="lsb_release -ds" – caraca Jan 25 '18 at 13:53
3

@CharlieParker alias os="lsb_release -a". I agree this should be easier by default, but the beauty of UNIX is it allows you to fix stuff like this yourself without much of a fuss. – Austin Dean Jun 13 '18 at 14:57
This does not seem to be working in Ubuntu 18. In 16 it does (and in the docs you linked, it shows 14). – wordsforthewise May 14 '19 at 03:58
bash: lsb_release: command not found and E: Unable to locate package lsb_release on Ubuntu 18 – techkuz Dec 18 '19 at 10:33
@JoãoRochadaSilva It's actually from the 2000's. – JoL Apr 17 '20 at 00:37
Code for ones which just needs short release description: sb_release -d | grep -ioP ':\s+\K(.+?$)' – Agnius Vasiliauskas Oct 02 '20 at 08:45

score 243 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 08 '18 at 02:04

243

Use:

cat /etc/*release

In my case it produced the following output:

DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
DISTRIB_RELEASE=17.2
DISTRIB_CODENAME=rafaela
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="14.04.3 LTS, Trusty Tahr"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS"
VERSION_ID="14.04"
HOME_URL="http://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"

edited Apr 08 '18 at 02:04

Peter Mortensen

884

answered Oct 16 '15 at 13:42

lese

2,675

14

cat /etc/lsb-release – Dec 06 '16 at 17:35
3

On current mint releases /etc/upstream-release/lsb-releasemight be of interest as well. – cheffo Apr 17 '17 at 19:26
12

This works everywhere I tested. lsb_release doesn't work on all versions. for example in Ubuntu 16.04 on Docker. – Jay Jun 03 '17 at 07:11
3

In my experience this is a more robust approach, some distributions will not have the lsb_release command – RutgerH Sep 27 '17 at 12:23
1

worked on my docker image – Rıfat Erdem Sahin Mar 09 '18 at 09:32
How to get just the DISTRIB_CODENAME e.g. "xenial" ? – RutgerH Apr 09 '18 at 11:43
using command to get directly grep 'CODENAME' /etc/lsb-release | cut -d'=' -f2 – Larry Cai Oct 23 '18 at 12:16
1

Good answer, as Ubuntu image installed from docker does not have lsb-release installed. – Binita Bharati Feb 04 '19 at 07:08
best solution, work in most of cases. – tim Apr 01 '19 at 00:51
This one works also on WSL – Niko Fohr Feb 14 '23 at 08:20

score 65 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 16 '15 at 16:58

Use this in the terminal to show the details about the installed Ubuntu "version":

lsb_release -a

This may be more verbose than you need - maybe you just wanted to see 15.4? It can be shown separately by the option -r (--release):

$ lsb_release -r
Release:        15.04

Add -s (--short) for use in a script:

$ lsb_release -r -s
15.04

See the further examples for the more useful options -c (--codename) and -d (--description), and both combined:

$ lsb_release -c
Codename:       vivid
$ lsb_release -d
Description:    Ubuntu 15.04
$ lsb_release -dc
Description:    Ubuntu 15.04
Codename:       vivid

Note you can get similar information about the currently running kernel, and the hardware by the similar command:

$ uname -a
Linux mybox 3.19.0-31-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 7 15:04:02 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

lsb_release -rs and lsb_release -cs are very useful in scripts. — frozen-flame, Jun 27 '18 at 03:08

score 15 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 16 '15 at 13:46

15

Executing this in Terminal will give you all of the information you could possibly need:

lsb_release -a

And you can access it in the GUI by going System Settings > Details:

answered Oct 16 '15 at 13:46

How do I check the version of Ubuntu I am running?

4 Answers4

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