On Wed 04 Jul 2018 at 13:18:14 (+1200), Richard Hector wrote: > On 02/07/18 05:31, David Wright wrote: > > On Sun 01 Jul 2018 at 22:44:17 (+1200), Richard Hector wrote: > >> On 28/06/18 16:40, David Wright wrote: > >>> On Wed 27 Jun 2018 at 19:49:13 (+0200), Martin Krämer wrote: > >>>> I am wondering if it is possible to get the debian release number > >>>> for debian testing (and maybe sid) from command line? > >>> > >>> Yes. > >>> > >>> # cat > /etc/debian_version > >>> Write whatever you want here > >>> ^D > >>> > >>> Job done. (That's a control-D.) > >>> > >>> Whether it's advisable to depend on its being numerical is a different > >>> matter. > >> > >> Wait, what? Are you trying to get it, or set it? Why would you want to > >> edit that? > > > > As Brad has already pointed out, "[…] [testing] will get the official > > release number 10 when buster becomes the stable branch of Debian." > > That's been policy AIUI at least since Debian 1.0 was not released. > > Meanwhile this question is asked, answered, and (re)submitted as a bug. > > > > What seems to be lost on people who feel a pressing need for > > /etc/debian_version to contain a number to satisfy some script that > > they have written (which seems to be the usual reason) is that > > /etc/debian_version is a configuration file. Look in the > > .deb file and there it is, along with /etc/issue{,.net} which > > determine how you are greeted {locally,remotely}. So admins are > > free to set them all how they like. > > I accept that you _can_ edit it. I just don't see why you'd want to,
I can only refer you to a recent iteration of bug reporting: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=866885 > especially in terms of the OP's request to find out what the version > number is. If the file has the version number, fine. If not, changing > the file still isn't going to help. Eh? If the OP wants a version number, then changing the string to a number will help. They could try to predict the upcoming version (bad idea), or indicate there isn't one with zero, or they could use a trusty sentinal value like 999 if it was important for the version number to be > V(stable). I'm not condoning any of these, just pointing out that the value is within the gift of the sysadmin. If a sysadmin thinks that debian_version is an important and accurate indication of the system's state when it's running testing, that might be a problem. Cheers, David.