8

I sometimes forget the version numbers and codenames from Debian.
Sure, lsb-release -a or cat /etc/os-release prints a well formatted information regarding the current system I logged in, but:

Is there a manpage or help document that lists all previous versions?

(Ideally it's something "native", so no tool to install. And something relatively easy to remember, so no curling a webpage)

I didn't find a man-page and thought I might find something in in /usr/share/doc but unfortunatley not.

What I did find, was a python file, that gives:

grep 'Description: Debian' /usr/share/python-apt/templates/Debian.info
Description: Debian 11 'bullseye'
Description: Debian 10 'buster'
Description: Debian 9 'stretch'
Description: Debian 8 'jessie'
Description: Debian 7 'Wheezy' 
Description: Debian 6.0 'Squeeze' 
Description: Debian 5.0 'Lenny' 
Description: Debian 4.0 'Etch'
Description: Debian 3.1 'Sarge'
Description: Debian current stable release
Description: Debian testing
Description: Debian 'Sid' (unstable)

which is cool as a workaround, but dependent on the python-apt package to be installed and thats not what I was going for.

EDIT:

Thank @Gilles for finding /usr/share/distro-info/debian.csv (and ubuntu.csv)
This file is nearly perfect, it even contains the dates of creation,release and "endoflive for LTS", e.g.:

...
9,Stretch,stretch,2015-04-25,2017-06-17,2020-07-06
...
MacMartin
  • 2,924

4 Answers4

11

As Gilles Quenot says, there’s no man page with this information; however the distro-info package provides a command which can show you this:

$ distro-info -af
Debian 1.1 "Buzz"
Debian 1.2 "Rex"
Debian 1.3 "Bo"
Debian 2.0 "Hamm"
Debian 2.1 "Slink"
Debian 2.2 "Potato"
Debian 3.0 "Woody"
Debian 3.1 "Sarge"
Debian 4.0 "Etch"
Debian 5.0 "Lenny"
Debian 6.0 "Squeeze"
Debian 7 "Wheezy"
Debian 8 "Jessie"
Debian 9 "Stretch"
Debian 10 "Buster"
Debian 11 "Bullseye"
Debian 12 "Bookworm"
Debian 13 "Trixie"
Debian  "Sid"
Debian  "Experimental"

More explicitly, debian-distro-info lists Debian releases, ubuntu-distro-info lists Ubuntu releases. distro-info defaults to whatever is appropriate for the distribution you’re using.

Stephen Kitt
  • 434,908
10

There's no man page:

find /usr/share/man -exec zgrep -li 'Wheezy|Potato' {} + 2>/dev/null

There's no match.

One way, using just one awk:

awk -F, '{print $1, $2}' /usr/share/distro-info/debian.csv
version codename
1.1 Buzz
1.2 Rex
1.3 Bo
2.0 Hamm
2.1 Slink
2.2 Potato
3.0 Woody
3.1 Sarge
4.0 Etch
5.0 Lenny
6.0 Squeeze
7 Wheezy
8 Jessie
9 Stretch
10 Buster
11 Bullseye
12 Bookworm
13 Trixie
 Sid
 Experimental

For Ubuntu:

awk -F, '{print $1, $2}' /usr/share/distro-info/ubuntu.csv 
version codename
4.10 Warty Warthog
5.04 Hoary Hedgehog
5.10 Breezy Badger
6.06 LTS Dapper Drake
6.10 Edgy Eft
7.04 Feisty Fawn
7.10 Gutsy Gibbon
8.04 LTS Hardy Heron
8.10 Intrepid Ibex
9.04 Jaunty Jackalope
9.10 Karmic Koala
10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx
10.10 Maverick Meerkat
11.04 Natty Narwhal
11.10 Oneiric Ocelot
12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin
12.10 Quantal Quetzal
13.04 Raring Ringtail
13.10 Saucy Salamander
14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr
14.10 Utopic Unicorn
15.04 Vivid Vervet
15.10 Wily Werewolf
16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus
16.10 Yakkety Yak
17.04 Zesty Zapus
17.10 Artful Aardvark
18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver
18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish
19.04 Disco Dingo
19.10 Eoan Ermine
20.04 LTS Focal Fossa
20.10 Groovy Gorilla
21.04 Hirsute Hippo
21.10 Impish Indri
22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish
22.10 Kinetic Kudu
23.04 Lunar Lobster

Another way:

xidel -se '//div[@id="toc"]/ul//li//li/a' \
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_version_history | 
    cut -d ' ' -f2-

or

curl -sL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_version_history |
     xmlstarlet format -H - 2>/dev/null |
     xmlstarlet sel -t -v '//div[@id="toc"]/ul//li//li/a' - |
     cut -d ' ' -f2-

output

Debian 1.1 (Buzz)
Debian 1.2 (Rex)
Debian 1.3 (Bo)
Debian 2.0 (Hamm)
Debian 2.1 (Slink)
Debian 2.2 (Potato)
Debian 3.0 (Woody)
Debian 3.1 (Sarge)
Debian 4.0 (Etch)
Debian 5.0 (Lenny)
Debian 6.0 (Squeeze)
Debian 7 (Wheezy)
Debian 8 (Jessie)
Debian 9 (Stretch)
Debian 10 (Buster)
Debian 11 (Bullseye)
Debian 12 (Bookworm)
Gilles Quénot
  • 33,867
  • interesting. sure, I could also use some curl and sed magic or a perl/python expression. But remembering and construct this complex statement is maybe not that easy, if you're in the need to find out. I adjusted my question to reflect this. – MacMartin Dec 09 '22 at 12:13
  • You could create an alias – Gilles Quénot Dec 09 '22 at 12:16
  • 3
    /usr/share/distro-info/debian.csv is perfect for this, thanks! – Panki Dec 09 '22 at 12:35
  • 1
    yeah, exactly! a csv file with all the infos, that already enough for me. maybe I searched on an to old machine and there it wasn't present. I can't tell for debian8, but on debian7 this file didnt exist. But I checked debian9,10,11 and the debian.csv/ubuntu.csv files where existent, even though the "distro-info" or "distro-info-date" is (and surely never was) installed. (dpkg -S /usr/share/distro-info/debian.csv > distro-info-data) – MacMartin Dec 09 '22 at 13:51
  • 1
    @MacMartin python3-apt depends on distro-info-data, that’s why you have the CSV file. – Stephen Kitt Dec 10 '22 at 08:00
1

additional to the other excellent answers, I now also found another another way via the gpg keyrings (strange, that ack didn't found this, but grep did)

This should work also on older machines as the gpg keyrings should be available everywhere:

gpg /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg |grep uid 
gpg /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-removed-keys.gpg |grep uid  # on the debian7 machine I tested, I had to leave out the "grep uid"

(for ubuntu this doesnt seem to work, as the keyrings are differently structured)

MacMartin
  • 2,924
  • gpg: WARNING: no command supplied. Trying to guess what you mean – Dennis Williamson Dec 09 '22 at 23:52
  • @DennisWilliamson - is that the only output? Indeed, gpg prints this warning when you don't specify an option. But it's just a warning, not an error. Running gpg /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg on the console (I used bash) should print the strings nevertheless. I find the gpg options confusing and unfortunately I didn't find the correct on to list the keys in the file. – MacMartin Dec 10 '22 at 11:39
  • No, there are three messages about Automatic Signing Keys, but nothing about Ubuntu release versions or names. If I omit the grep there are a few pub entries. I also checked the removed and master files and found nothing. – Dennis Williamson Dec 10 '22 at 12:21
  • my bad ... for ubuntu it seems like the keyrings are differently structured. sorry, will correct my answer :/ – MacMartin Dec 11 '22 at 17:25
0

Open a web browser (I assume you already have one installed) and visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_version_history .

Federico Poloni
  • 371
  • 1
    Thanks for your input, but this wasn't exactly the direction the question was headed. But rather how to find that information on a host natively (although I didn't specify "console only". There are times when you don't have a gui, and therefor no web browser installed - or times when internetacces is blocke and even w3/lynx/...-browser couldnt help) – MacMartin Dec 10 '22 at 11:44