Sometimes we want to get version information about distro. The most handy way to achieve that is through lsb-release. However, if you are working on a system that you are not able to install packages and lsb-release is not installed, how could you get version information.

The answer is to use cat /etc/*release

$ cat /etc/*release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=22.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jammy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS"
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION_ID="22.04"
VERSION="22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)"
VERSION_CODENAME=jammy
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"