Check the Ubuntu version

Please note that this article / this category refers either on older software / hardware components or is no longer maintained for other reasons. This page is no longer updated and is purely for reference purposes still here in the archive available.

There are several ways to check the currently installed Ubuntu version. Ubuntu-Releases appear semi-annually and every two years appear so called "Long Term Support" versions. These offer updates and support for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server side. The other releases will be supported for 18 months.

Check the Ubuntu version

On the command line, the following command can be used to display the Ubuntu version:

$ lsb_release -a
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release:	16.04
Codename:	xenial

Alternatively, the content of the /etc/lsb-release file can be read-out by using cat.

$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS"