How To: Find Out the Release Version of Your UNIX

Different UNIX-like operating systems store information about their release versions differently. If you know what OS you have, but not sure about the version, then here’s how you can find out:

RedHat Linux

bash-3.1$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client release 5 (Tikanga)

Ubuntu Linux

bash-3.1$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 6.10 n l

SUSE Linux

~> cat /etc/SuSE-release
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (x86_64)
VERSION = 10

Sun Solaris

bash-2.03$ cat /etc/release 
Solaris 8 2/04 s28s_hw4wos_05a SPARC Copyright 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 
All Rights Reserved. Assembled 08 January 2004

See Also

• cat command
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• Solaris
• Check Raspbian OS Version