On 2018-07-06, The Wanderer <wande...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > > On 2018-07-05 at 17:29, Nicholas Geovanis wrote: > >> 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. > > That's not true. /etc/debian_version, if not modified by the sysadmin, > should always tell you this. >
/usr/share/doc/base-files/FAQ Q. I upgraded my system to the testing distribution and now my /etc/issue says "buster/sid". Should it not read "buster" or "testing"? Q. I upgraded my system to the unstable distribution and now my /etc/issue says "buster/sid". Should it not read "sid" or "unstable"? A. That would be nice, but it is not possible because of the way the testing distribution works. Packages uploaded for unstable reach testing after ten days, provided they are built for every released architecture, have no RC-bugs and their dependencies may be met in testing. You should consider the testing and unstable distributions as two sides of the same coin. Since the base-files package in testing was initially uploaded for unstable, the only sensible /etc/issue to have is one that is both valid for testing and unstable, hence "buster/sid" (or whatever is appropriate). Q. Ok, but how do I know which distribution I'm running? A. If you are running testing or unstable, then /etc/debian_version is not a reliable way to know that anymore. Looking at the contents of your /etc/apt/sources.list file is probably a much better way.
