Deriving information about your Debian installation, kernel and package versions.
Debian Version
If you have recently made the transition from Wheezy to Jessie and wish to confirm the version in use. Particularly if, like me, your /etc/apt/sources.list file only makes references to testing, and not a particular version.
To get the version of Debian installed enter the following at a terminal (requires root)
cat /etc/debian_version
The response will be similar to:
jessie/sid
Kernel Version
This one doesn’t require root
uname -r
On one of my HP Proliant MicroServer boxes this gave
3.2.0-4-amd64
Software Package
If you take some packages from experimental, for example Iceweasel and are wondering which version you currently have installed then as root
dpkg -l | grep iceweasel
The results for this one were:
ii iceweasel 26.0-1 amd64 Web browser based on Firefox ii iceweasel-l10n-en-gb 1:26.0-1 all English (United Kingdom) language package for Iceweasel
