Find your Ubuntu kernel version

The Linux kernel, which is responsible for managing the system hardware, is a core component of every Ubuntu system. From time to time there are vulnerabilities that affect specific kernel versions, and being able to verify whether or not you are affected can be helpful. Certain features and hardware support are tied to certain kernel versions as well. Here is how you discover your Ubuntu kernel version.

Open a Terminal window and type ‘uname -r’ which will show you the Linux kernel version, or ‘uname -a’ which will give you a bit more info. Here is an example:

su@ubuntu-test:~$ uname -r
3.16.0-23-generic
su@ubuntu-test:~$ uname -p
x86_64
su@ubuntu-test:~$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu-test 3.16.0-23-generic #31-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 21 17:56:17 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
su@ubuntu-test:~$

From the second command, we can determine weather the kernel is 32bit or 64bit. The third line returns all information available to the uname command.