On Thu 05 Jul 2018 at 16:29:30 (-0500), Nicholas Geovanis wrote: > On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 3:46 PM Greg Wooledge <wool...@eeg.ccf.org> wrote: > > > > On Thu, Jul 05, 2018 at 03:27:44PM -0500, Nicholas Geovanis wrote: > > > (1) You foolishly relied on the value in /etc/debian_version when > > > > It is not a fucking configuration file that you edit. > > It is supposed to be read only. > > Only a crazy idiot would manually edit the file that tells you what > > version of the OS you're running. > > It would be like editing registry entries in Microsoft Windows to make > > it look like you're running a different version of Windows. > > All perfectly correct, valid statements in my view Greg. > But that wasn't my question. > Question: What is the correct tool to TELL you what Debian version you > are running? > Mr. Armstrong suggests that dpkg is a better choice and that sounds better > than > the apt-related commands. But Joe A followed up with: > "But it's odd that you're the first to point out (indirectly) that > knowing the version of Debian isn't that useful." > I did no such thing. I think it's very useful. But what I'm trying to > point out here > is that there seems to be no such canonical (sic) Debian tool which CAN tell > me > what release and version I'm running. Otherwise the answer from Joe Armstrong > would have been more like "run command XYZ which tells you version=3.4.5". > So there doesn't seem to be such a tool. That was my point. > Now we know that the answer "look at /etc/debian_version" is the wrong answer. > So again: What is the correct, intended, standard Debian tool which tells me > the installed, running Debian release and version number?
Oh, that's easy. The intended one is /etc/os-release ± lsb_release (command) if it's installed. Though a closer approach might be /etc/apt/sources.list. Cheers, David.
