HowTo: Determine RedHat and Fedora release version

A quick blog post on how to determine your Fedora release name and its release version. For several years of staying and working under a company with multiple linux distributions and versions, multiple OS upgrades and server redundcancy backups makes it somehow confusing and difficult to differentiate which release name and version was a specific server is currently on.

In Fedora, the release name and release version is reflected by viewing the /etc/fedora-release file. Simply view the file using cat like so

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# cat /etc/fedora-release
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may get similar output lines below
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf)
Fedora Core release 6 (Zod)
Fedora Core release 3 (Heidelberg)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RedHat of course has this file /etc/redhat-release which shows the same distro release name and release version.

Check out these files as well.
/etc/system-release
/etc/issue
/etc/issue.net

HTH