How to get the kernel version?

uname, short for Unix Name, is part of GNU coreutils, and thus very likely already installed:

$ uname --kernel-release                                                                     
6.13.3-arch1-1

It has some other potentially interesting flags too. Go and have a look at the docs.

posted 11 months ago

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Iizuki‭

910 reputation 32 36 124 19

You can find the version information in /proc/version.

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 6.8.0-53-generic (buildd@lcy02-amd64-046) (x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-13 (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu) 2.42) #55-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Jan 17 15:37:52 UTC 2025

In this case it is 6.8.0, with the distribution specific package version 6.8.0-53-generic.

Other methods to read the file (if cat is not available for some reason):

read version < /proc/version
echo $version

On some shells (e.g. bash, zsh) this will work:

echo $(</proc/version)

posted 11 months ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

11mo ago

GeraldS‭

669 reputation 4 32 72 28

If using KDE Plasma's desktop environment, even on an OS without GNU's coreutils (like Alpine Linux, but its BusyBox replacement does also include it), kinfo works. However, this does not operate outside Plasma. Replacing it, fastfetch ^[1] provides similar: ^[2]

1. fastfetch -l none | grep Kernel | yq '.Kernel'

2. Linux 6.17.4-200.fc42.x86_64

However, if you (less conveniently) want the most information about your kernel, utilise ⪅ python3-3.13.9-1.fc42's platform.uname: ^[3]

1. #!/usr/bin/env python3
   import platform
   import builtins
   builtins.print(platform.uname())
   

2. uname_result(system='Linux', node='Beedell.RokeJulianLockhart.desktop.SSV2AY', release='6.17.4-200.fc42.x86_64', version='#1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun Oct 19 18:47:49 UTC 2025', machine='x86_64')

posted 3 months ago

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3mo ago

Mr. Beedell, Roke Julian Lockhart (RJLB)‭

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