Find OS Version in Linux

Aug 3, 2019 min read

Sometimes you need to know the operating system version you’re using. In Linux it’s easy to find with the following command in your terminal:

uname -a

# Linux 1122b5dc6624 4.9.125-linuxkit #1 SMP Fri Sep 7 08:20:28 UTC 2018 x86_64 Linux

To find the distribution fo Linux (i.e. Ubuntu), in your terminal:

cat /etc/*release

3.9.3
NAME="Alpine Linux"
ID=alpine
VERSION_ID=3.9.3
PRETTY_NAME="Alpine Linux v3.9"
HOME_URL="https://alpinelinux.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.alpinelinux.org/"