How To – Find Out Your Ubuntu Version Name

This is just a quick tip, and something I tend to need to do because I’m a bit absentminded and have one of the worst short-term memories out there. The version names for Ubuntu sometimes escape me. Maybe it’s because they are referred to by cute little ‘codenames’ instead of version numbers.

Type the following at the prompt:
cat /etc/lsb-release
It should output something similar to mine, which looks like this:
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Natty Narwhal
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 11.04"

Not too hard to figure out that the line that says ‘DISTRIB_CODENAME’ is the one that tells you the name of your version. Fairly painless.

You can find it by executing the below command

cat /etc/issue

The file /etc/issue holds the version of Ubuntu installed on your system