I have been given a pre-installed SD card. It boots fine, and I know it is running some version of Raspbian. Can I determine exactly which release it is running?
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Use:
cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list
If the file exists, you are using Raspberry Pi OS. An example of the content:
deb http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian/ bookworm main
# Uncomment line below then 'apt-get update' to enable 'apt-get source'
#deb-src http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian/ bookworm main
Before Debian 11 (bullseye)
Open Terminal and type:
cat /etc/os-release
This results in the following output on my Raspberry Pi 2...
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="8"
VERSION="8 (jessie)"
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"
26
Do not look at uname -a. That just shows kernel version. To find the distribution version, run:
sudo apt-get install lsb-release
lsb_release -a
My RPi shows:
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 7.8 (wheezy)
Release: 7.8
Codename: wheezy
Cerin
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23
https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen/releases lists releases of Raspbian since 2016-05-10.
To find your Raspbian distribution image release date (not the /etc/os-release information such as VERSION="8 (jessie)") on a running system:
$ cat /etc/rpi-issue
Raspberry Pi reference 2016-05-10
Generated using pi-gen, https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen, c32099002b4c44243e87d8cc90303237eb5ce06a, stage4
Note if you did 'apt-get {dist-,}upgrade' or rpi-update, you will have updated some files since you first installed that distribution image.
[The original poster asked back in 2013, before the github URL existed, but this answer may help some users in 2016.]
Update: Instead of actually running Raspbian on that mysterious Raspbian SD card, you could also mount the SD card in a Linux or Windows desktop SD reader to read the /issue.txt file directly. /issue.txt exists in the root directory of the SD card's FAT16 partition. From Ubuntu 16.04.1, I see the following on a second SD card I have:
Raspberry Pi reference 2016-09-23
Generated using pi-gen, https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen, 62406bad92ed23728f46711b3539c04c37dfb62c, stage4
rcpa0
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Almost what Cerin wrote. Just lsb_release -a and you don't need to install the LSB module to see the raspbian description
Arash
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The following script is one I use to collect relevant details. (It is called about)
You can run this or the individual commands
#! /bin/sh
if [ -e /etc/rpi-issue ]; then
echo "- Original Installation"
cat /etc/rpi-issue
fi
if [ -e /usr/bin/lsb_release ]; then
echo "- Current OS"
lsb_release -irdc
fi
echo "- Kernel"
uname -r
echo "- Model"
cat /proc/device-tree/model && echo
echo "- hostname"
hostname
echo "- Firmware"
/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
The output on my Pi3A+ shows
- Original Installation
Raspberry Pi reference 2018-11-13
Generated using pi-gen, https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen, 7e0c786c641ba15990b5662f092c106beed40c9f, stage4
- Current OS
Distributor ID: Raspbian
Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.6 (stretch)
Release: 9.6
Codename: stretch
- Kernel
4.14.79-v7+
- Model
Raspberry Pi 3 Model A Plus Rev 1.0
- hostname
MilliwaysPi3A
- Firmware
Nov 4 2018 16:31:07
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version ed5baf9520a3c4ca82ba38594b898f0c0446da66 (clean) (release)
Filesystem created: Tue Jan 1 12:09:51 2019
It should produce a meaningful output on most Linux distributions, e.g. Ubuntu MATE
- Current OS
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial
- Kernel
4.4.38-v7+
- Model
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Rev 1.1
- hostname
PiUbuntu
- Firmware
Dec 9 2016 15:11:26
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version 2e557d8dac70add28597c3b449cb52c34588d818 (clean) (release)
Milliways
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