Black magic. Just kidding. When you visit a site with your web browser it sends a little nugget of information to that site called a "User Agent". The user agent has a few minor pieces of information about your browser, platform, and OS version. Using this information a guess can be made about what Operating System your using.
Why is it a guess? The user agent your browser sends to the website can be changed very easily. It's not to be trusted in any way, shape, or form as the truth, but most people generally use browsers who's user agents have not been changed.
Why is it only generally? Sometimes the people that provide your internet access will modify this user agent so the website can not tell what your browser is or will set the user agent to a general browser type so the site will render the same for everyone. This is not the norm so don't fret to much. Most browsers do not put the version number of the OS in the user agent string but some do. Apple products are a good example. The browsers that put OS version information in the user agent string are usually the browsers come with the OS or are created compiled by the vendor.
The vendors built-in browser will provide the most information to this site for it to render the most accurate guess. For example Apple's built-in browser Safari provides the full version of the OS in the user agent string, but Firefox on the same Apple computer only provdes a portion of the version number. First, read the section called "How do you know what my OS is? Now that you know how we go about guessing your OS you might have an idea on why we can't.
The most likely answer is that there might not be enough information in your user agent string to render a good guess or since the user agent is so easily changed yours could have been changed to something that is not normal or is so obscure that a guess could not even be rendered. It's a good chance it's nothing you did so don't worry. Go through the "What's the version of my OS" section above and see if you notice anything mentioned there. It's likely you have an idea what OS your using your just not sure.
Guessing an Operating System by just using a user agent is not as easy as it looks. There are so many little differences between each one. Words are not always in the same spot. Some things are spelled differently. The list goes on and on. This site is constantly being monitored, updated, and tweaked to fix errors. Internet Archive Book Images. Modified by Opensource. Get the highlights in your inbox every week. More Linux resources. Our latest Linux articles. Topics Linux.
About the author. He is a advocate for open access, open educational resources, and open source software. He holds a master's degree in library and information science from Wayne State University and a master's degree in higher education from Grand Valley State University. Joshua can be reached at holmja opensource.
More about me. Contributors Seth Kenlon. Recommended reading 7 Linux commands to use just for fun. On the other hand, you may need to know the Linux kernel version. The Kernel is the core of Linux, the code that lets the software communicate with the hardware. Our guide to the Linux kernel will explain this in more detail. In addition to the nine command line options below, you can also check your Linux version from the desktop.
This will differ depending on the desktop environment and operating system. However, if you want to check your Ubuntu version, your CentOS version, or whatever, without the command line, you can. Here, you'll see the distro version you're running. While this won't give you as much detail as the command line, it is enough to confirm your Linux version. As you'll have gathered, the desktop will only give you the basic information concerning your Linux version.
For more details, you'll need to rely on the command line. Various commands can be used to reveal interesting information about your Linux system. Along with the details of your Linux version, you can find out about the distribution release, codename, and Kernel. This information can prove useful for several reasons. You night need it for troubleshooting, for example, or simply to check if your Linux version has updated. Shells run using a graphic terminal that processes the commands in the relevant programming language.
This will serve as your starting point in checking your Linux version. Type the following command into the terminal and then press enter:. The asterisk in the code ensures that the command will apply to all distributions and shows you the installed version. Another command that works on all distributions without the need for a special tool is the following:.
If you only need the name and version number of your current distribution, the following command will suffice:. In the following example, you can see that Ubuntu In the above example, the Linux kernel is 5. With the tool Inxi, you can easily view all the information about your hardware, host, Linux kernel, desktop environment, and distribution.
Knowing which Debian version you have not only helps you to choose the right install package for a program — you also need it to get appropriate support in forums. There are several different methods to check your Debian version.
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