How can I tell what date Ubuntu was installed?
up vote
118
down vote
favorite
is there a command which will output the date that ubuntu (or any distribution) was installed?
command-line system-installation log
add a comment |
up vote
118
down vote
favorite
is there a command which will output the date that ubuntu (or any distribution) was installed?
command-line system-installation log
add a comment |
up vote
118
down vote
favorite
up vote
118
down vote
favorite
is there a command which will output the date that ubuntu (or any distribution) was installed?
command-line system-installation log
is there a command which will output the date that ubuntu (or any distribution) was installed?
command-line system-installation log
command-line system-installation log
edited Mar 12 '16 at 18:32
muru
135k20291493
135k20291493
asked Aug 6 '10 at 6:09
lxtips
691265
691265
add a comment |
add a comment |
8 Answers
8
active
oldest
votes
up vote
95
down vote
You can check the installer logs and dates at:
/var/log/installer
A quick way to find the date through the command line would be by running:
ls -lt /var/log/installer
That lists in reverse chronological order so the oldest file is at the bottom of the list.
1
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...
– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
8
A pastable answer might bels -ld /var/log/installer
.
– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
|
show 6 more comments
up vote
69
down vote
If you use ext2/ext3/ext4 and formatted the disk when you installed you can do this nifty trick.
sudo dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'
You might have to change the /dev/sda1
to reflect your setup.
Relaying on the date of files, even the "creation time" (mtime) can give errors since upgrading packages might have replaced the file and made a new "creation time".
Similar tools and info might be available on other file systems as well, but I don't know of them.
When I do this I get the errordumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was/dev/sda2
. On/dev/sda1
I have/boot/efi
.
– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
2
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
1
You could use the-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.
– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
add a comment |
up vote
5
down vote
the only command that worked for me is -
sudo ls -alct /|tail -1|awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'
add a comment |
up vote
3
down vote
I also don't know of a specific command or file. I'm using some heuristics to find the installation date:
for dir in {/etc,/usr,/lib}; do
sudo find $dir -type f -exec stat -c %z {} ; |
sed -e 's,-,,g' -e 's, .*,,' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr -k 2 |
grep -Ev " [0-9]?[0-9] "
done
This small script looks for files in /etc
and /usr
and prints out the last changed date. It does some reformatting and lists the occurrences sorted by date (newest first). Usually the oldest entry is the installation date.
This assumes that after an installation are left unchanged. This is in most cases (according to my observation) true, but in special cases it can also give wrong results.
1
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
If the installation is recent, look at the oldest entries under /var/log
, but after a few weeks the logs will have been rotated away.
Another thing to look at is the oldest ctime of a file on the root filesystem; but if the whole installation has been copied (e.g. rescued off a failing disk) at the directory tree level, this gives you the date of the copy.
If a heuristic is good enough, look at the date (mtime) of a file that was created during the installation and is unlikely to have been modified since. A good candidate is /etc/hostname
; other candidates are /etc/hosts
, /etc/papersize
, /etc/popularity-contest.conf
.
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
I don't think there is.
On Red Hat / CentOS there is the install.log files that is generated when you install the system, but this doesn't exist on Ubuntu.
Assuming your logs go back far enough ( mine do ) you can determine the date the base installation was done in /var/log/dpkg.log*
For example on my system the first two lines of my oldest dpkg.log file (dpkg.log.4.gz) are
2010-04-19 11:40:55 startup archives install
2010-04-19 11:40:55 install base-files <none> 5.0.0ubuntu18
So I installed this system on 19/04/2010 at 11:40:55. That is correct for this system.
There was also a brainstorm idea to add this born date.
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
The default setup oflogrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
would it be simple (i may be wrong) just to check software centre, while in there click on 'history' and scroll down to the bottom of your installed updates. Mine shows april 23 2012 first installation. Which is about right when I started using ubuntu?
add a comment |
up vote
-1
down vote
The command sudo grep ubiquity /var/log/installer/syslog | less
worked for me very well.
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "89"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: true,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: 10,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f1352%2fhow-can-i-tell-what-date-ubuntu-was-installed%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
8 Answers
8
active
oldest
votes
8 Answers
8
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
95
down vote
You can check the installer logs and dates at:
/var/log/installer
A quick way to find the date through the command line would be by running:
ls -lt /var/log/installer
That lists in reverse chronological order so the oldest file is at the bottom of the list.
1
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...
– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
8
A pastable answer might bels -ld /var/log/installer
.
– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
|
show 6 more comments
up vote
95
down vote
You can check the installer logs and dates at:
/var/log/installer
A quick way to find the date through the command line would be by running:
ls -lt /var/log/installer
That lists in reverse chronological order so the oldest file is at the bottom of the list.
1
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...
– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
8
A pastable answer might bels -ld /var/log/installer
.
– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
|
show 6 more comments
up vote
95
down vote
up vote
95
down vote
You can check the installer logs and dates at:
/var/log/installer
A quick way to find the date through the command line would be by running:
ls -lt /var/log/installer
That lists in reverse chronological order so the oldest file is at the bottom of the list.
You can check the installer logs and dates at:
/var/log/installer
A quick way to find the date through the command line would be by running:
ls -lt /var/log/installer
That lists in reverse chronological order so the oldest file is at the bottom of the list.
edited Jan 6 '17 at 23:03
H2ONaCl
3,245204885
3,245204885
answered Aug 6 '10 at 7:28
João Pinto
14.6k34660
14.6k34660
1
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...
– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
8
A pastable answer might bels -ld /var/log/installer
.
– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
|
show 6 more comments
1
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...
– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
8
A pastable answer might bels -ld /var/log/installer
.
– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
1
1
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
This file isn't on my Lucid system.
– richq
Aug 7 '10 at 20:31
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
On my system, I have 7 files under /var/log/installer/ . I installed from 9.10, and later updated to 10.04.
– Stefan Lasiewski
Aug 10 '10 at 0:34
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
I do also have this folder on my (freshly installed) 10.04 system and the creation dates of those files give me the install date. The file /var/log/installer/media-info for example contains the information about the installation media that was used for the install.
– Marcel Stimberg
Aug 10 '10 at 12:29
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,
/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
On my system that was installed originally with 7.10,
/var/log/installer/version
has a date of 2007-10-30, so this seems to be quite reliable...– JanC
Oct 21 '10 at 3:02
8
8
A pastable answer might be
ls -ld /var/log/installer
.– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
A pastable answer might be
ls -ld /var/log/installer
.– Justin Force
May 29 '12 at 21:45
|
show 6 more comments
up vote
69
down vote
If you use ext2/ext3/ext4 and formatted the disk when you installed you can do this nifty trick.
sudo dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'
You might have to change the /dev/sda1
to reflect your setup.
Relaying on the date of files, even the "creation time" (mtime) can give errors since upgrading packages might have replaced the file and made a new "creation time".
Similar tools and info might be available on other file systems as well, but I don't know of them.
When I do this I get the errordumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was/dev/sda2
. On/dev/sda1
I have/boot/efi
.
– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
2
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
1
You could use the-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.
– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
add a comment |
up vote
69
down vote
If you use ext2/ext3/ext4 and formatted the disk when you installed you can do this nifty trick.
sudo dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'
You might have to change the /dev/sda1
to reflect your setup.
Relaying on the date of files, even the "creation time" (mtime) can give errors since upgrading packages might have replaced the file and made a new "creation time".
Similar tools and info might be available on other file systems as well, but I don't know of them.
When I do this I get the errordumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was/dev/sda2
. On/dev/sda1
I have/boot/efi
.
– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
2
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
1
You could use the-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.
– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
add a comment |
up vote
69
down vote
up vote
69
down vote
If you use ext2/ext3/ext4 and formatted the disk when you installed you can do this nifty trick.
sudo dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'
You might have to change the /dev/sda1
to reflect your setup.
Relaying on the date of files, even the "creation time" (mtime) can give errors since upgrading packages might have replaced the file and made a new "creation time".
Similar tools and info might be available on other file systems as well, but I don't know of them.
If you use ext2/ext3/ext4 and formatted the disk when you installed you can do this nifty trick.
sudo dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'
You might have to change the /dev/sda1
to reflect your setup.
Relaying on the date of files, even the "creation time" (mtime) can give errors since upgrading packages might have replaced the file and made a new "creation time".
Similar tools and info might be available on other file systems as well, but I don't know of them.
edited Feb 13 '14 at 0:33
answered Aug 10 '10 at 12:11
LassePoulsen
11.5k83857
11.5k83857
When I do this I get the errordumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was/dev/sda2
. On/dev/sda1
I have/boot/efi
.
– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
2
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
1
You could use the-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.
– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
add a comment |
When I do this I get the errordumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was/dev/sda2
. On/dev/sda1
I have/boot/efi
.
– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
2
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
1
You could use the-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.
– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
When I do this I get the error
dumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
When I do this I get the error
dumpe2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda1
– king_julien
Apr 2 '14 at 20:28
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
@king_julien Are you sure that your /dev/sda1 is your systems root partition? It may be different on your install, in fact the filesystem type may be an other than what is supported by dumpe2fs!
– LassePoulsen
Apr 2 '14 at 21:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was
/dev/sda2
. On /dev/sda1
I have /boot/efi
.– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
Thanks, I got it now. It was
/dev/sda2
. On /dev/sda1
I have /boot/efi
.– king_julien
Apr 3 '14 at 18:36
2
2
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
You can use a more general but a little complicated command: sudo dumpe2fs $(mount | grep 'on / ' | awk '{print $1}') | grep 'Filesystem created:'
– Aram Paronikyan
Jun 8 '16 at 12:10
1
1
You could use the
-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
You could use the
-h
option so you at least only get the superblock info which should be more than enough.– Alexis Wilke
Sep 25 '16 at 21:43
add a comment |
up vote
5
down vote
the only command that worked for me is -
sudo ls -alct /|tail -1|awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'
add a comment |
up vote
5
down vote
the only command that worked for me is -
sudo ls -alct /|tail -1|awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'
add a comment |
up vote
5
down vote
up vote
5
down vote
the only command that worked for me is -
sudo ls -alct /|tail -1|awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'
the only command that worked for me is -
sudo ls -alct /|tail -1|awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'
edited Aug 22 '16 at 14:44
Tim
19.5k1484139
19.5k1484139
answered Feb 11 '16 at 12:10
Tony Doyle
6112
6112
add a comment |
add a comment |
up vote
3
down vote
I also don't know of a specific command or file. I'm using some heuristics to find the installation date:
for dir in {/etc,/usr,/lib}; do
sudo find $dir -type f -exec stat -c %z {} ; |
sed -e 's,-,,g' -e 's, .*,,' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr -k 2 |
grep -Ev " [0-9]?[0-9] "
done
This small script looks for files in /etc
and /usr
and prints out the last changed date. It does some reformatting and lists the occurrences sorted by date (newest first). Usually the oldest entry is the installation date.
This assumes that after an installation are left unchanged. This is in most cases (according to my observation) true, but in special cases it can also give wrong results.
1
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
add a comment |
up vote
3
down vote
I also don't know of a specific command or file. I'm using some heuristics to find the installation date:
for dir in {/etc,/usr,/lib}; do
sudo find $dir -type f -exec stat -c %z {} ; |
sed -e 's,-,,g' -e 's, .*,,' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr -k 2 |
grep -Ev " [0-9]?[0-9] "
done
This small script looks for files in /etc
and /usr
and prints out the last changed date. It does some reformatting and lists the occurrences sorted by date (newest first). Usually the oldest entry is the installation date.
This assumes that after an installation are left unchanged. This is in most cases (according to my observation) true, but in special cases it can also give wrong results.
1
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
add a comment |
up vote
3
down vote
up vote
3
down vote
I also don't know of a specific command or file. I'm using some heuristics to find the installation date:
for dir in {/etc,/usr,/lib}; do
sudo find $dir -type f -exec stat -c %z {} ; |
sed -e 's,-,,g' -e 's, .*,,' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr -k 2 |
grep -Ev " [0-9]?[0-9] "
done
This small script looks for files in /etc
and /usr
and prints out the last changed date. It does some reformatting and lists the occurrences sorted by date (newest first). Usually the oldest entry is the installation date.
This assumes that after an installation are left unchanged. This is in most cases (according to my observation) true, but in special cases it can also give wrong results.
I also don't know of a specific command or file. I'm using some heuristics to find the installation date:
for dir in {/etc,/usr,/lib}; do
sudo find $dir -type f -exec stat -c %z {} ; |
sed -e 's,-,,g' -e 's, .*,,' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr -k 2 |
grep -Ev " [0-9]?[0-9] "
done
This small script looks for files in /etc
and /usr
and prints out the last changed date. It does some reformatting and lists the occurrences sorted by date (newest first). Usually the oldest entry is the installation date.
This assumes that after an installation are left unchanged. This is in most cases (according to my observation) true, but in special cases it can also give wrong results.
answered Aug 6 '10 at 7:49
qbi
14.9k863118
14.9k863118
1
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
add a comment |
1
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
1
1
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
tried it on /etc only (faster), the date was the same as from the dumpe2fs solution, so for me it worked well!
– eik3
Feb 28 '14 at 15:52
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
If the installation is recent, look at the oldest entries under /var/log
, but after a few weeks the logs will have been rotated away.
Another thing to look at is the oldest ctime of a file on the root filesystem; but if the whole installation has been copied (e.g. rescued off a failing disk) at the directory tree level, this gives you the date of the copy.
If a heuristic is good enough, look at the date (mtime) of a file that was created during the installation and is unlikely to have been modified since. A good candidate is /etc/hostname
; other candidates are /etc/hosts
, /etc/papersize
, /etc/popularity-contest.conf
.
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
If the installation is recent, look at the oldest entries under /var/log
, but after a few weeks the logs will have been rotated away.
Another thing to look at is the oldest ctime of a file on the root filesystem; but if the whole installation has been copied (e.g. rescued off a failing disk) at the directory tree level, this gives you the date of the copy.
If a heuristic is good enough, look at the date (mtime) of a file that was created during the installation and is unlikely to have been modified since. A good candidate is /etc/hostname
; other candidates are /etc/hosts
, /etc/papersize
, /etc/popularity-contest.conf
.
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
If the installation is recent, look at the oldest entries under /var/log
, but after a few weeks the logs will have been rotated away.
Another thing to look at is the oldest ctime of a file on the root filesystem; but if the whole installation has been copied (e.g. rescued off a failing disk) at the directory tree level, this gives you the date of the copy.
If a heuristic is good enough, look at the date (mtime) of a file that was created during the installation and is unlikely to have been modified since. A good candidate is /etc/hostname
; other candidates are /etc/hosts
, /etc/papersize
, /etc/popularity-contest.conf
.
If the installation is recent, look at the oldest entries under /var/log
, but after a few weeks the logs will have been rotated away.
Another thing to look at is the oldest ctime of a file on the root filesystem; but if the whole installation has been copied (e.g. rescued off a failing disk) at the directory tree level, this gives you the date of the copy.
If a heuristic is good enough, look at the date (mtime) of a file that was created during the installation and is unlikely to have been modified since. A good candidate is /etc/hostname
; other candidates are /etc/hosts
, /etc/papersize
, /etc/popularity-contest.conf
.
answered Aug 10 '10 at 11:54
Gilles
44.4k1399138
44.4k1399138
add a comment |
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
I don't think there is.
On Red Hat / CentOS there is the install.log files that is generated when you install the system, but this doesn't exist on Ubuntu.
Assuming your logs go back far enough ( mine do ) you can determine the date the base installation was done in /var/log/dpkg.log*
For example on my system the first two lines of my oldest dpkg.log file (dpkg.log.4.gz) are
2010-04-19 11:40:55 startup archives install
2010-04-19 11:40:55 install base-files <none> 5.0.0ubuntu18
So I installed this system on 19/04/2010 at 11:40:55. That is correct for this system.
There was also a brainstorm idea to add this born date.
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
The default setup oflogrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
I don't think there is.
On Red Hat / CentOS there is the install.log files that is generated when you install the system, but this doesn't exist on Ubuntu.
Assuming your logs go back far enough ( mine do ) you can determine the date the base installation was done in /var/log/dpkg.log*
For example on my system the first two lines of my oldest dpkg.log file (dpkg.log.4.gz) are
2010-04-19 11:40:55 startup archives install
2010-04-19 11:40:55 install base-files <none> 5.0.0ubuntu18
So I installed this system on 19/04/2010 at 11:40:55. That is correct for this system.
There was also a brainstorm idea to add this born date.
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
The default setup oflogrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
up vote
0
down vote
I don't think there is.
On Red Hat / CentOS there is the install.log files that is generated when you install the system, but this doesn't exist on Ubuntu.
Assuming your logs go back far enough ( mine do ) you can determine the date the base installation was done in /var/log/dpkg.log*
For example on my system the first two lines of my oldest dpkg.log file (dpkg.log.4.gz) are
2010-04-19 11:40:55 startup archives install
2010-04-19 11:40:55 install base-files <none> 5.0.0ubuntu18
So I installed this system on 19/04/2010 at 11:40:55. That is correct for this system.
There was also a brainstorm idea to add this born date.
I don't think there is.
On Red Hat / CentOS there is the install.log files that is generated when you install the system, but this doesn't exist on Ubuntu.
Assuming your logs go back far enough ( mine do ) you can determine the date the base installation was done in /var/log/dpkg.log*
For example on my system the first two lines of my oldest dpkg.log file (dpkg.log.4.gz) are
2010-04-19 11:40:55 startup archives install
2010-04-19 11:40:55 install base-files <none> 5.0.0ubuntu18
So I installed this system on 19/04/2010 at 11:40:55. That is correct for this system.
There was also a brainstorm idea to add this born date.
answered Aug 6 '10 at 6:19
Richard Holloway
20.2k54152
20.2k54152
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
The default setup oflogrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
add a comment |
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
The default setup oflogrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
Thank-you andol, thank-you Richard. /var/log/dpkg.log.1 on a lucid desktop system gave a correct answer where as /var/log/dpkg.log was the only file on a lucid server setup I have, so a little detective work was needed. Some further understanding of the log files will be helpful.
– lxtips
Aug 6 '10 at 7:05
The default setup of
logrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
The default setup of
logrotate
discards dpkg logs older than one year.– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 12:13
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
@Source Lab : Yup. My answer is not foolproof. I did not know about the /var/log/installer directory but do now. That is a better solution.
– Richard Holloway
Aug 10 '10 at 17:20
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
I still think that the filesystem creation time is the best pointer se here
– LassePoulsen
Aug 10 '10 at 17:31
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
would it be simple (i may be wrong) just to check software centre, while in there click on 'history' and scroll down to the bottom of your installed updates. Mine shows april 23 2012 first installation. Which is about right when I started using ubuntu?
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
would it be simple (i may be wrong) just to check software centre, while in there click on 'history' and scroll down to the bottom of your installed updates. Mine shows april 23 2012 first installation. Which is about right when I started using ubuntu?
add a comment |
up vote
0
down vote
up vote
0
down vote
would it be simple (i may be wrong) just to check software centre, while in there click on 'history' and scroll down to the bottom of your installed updates. Mine shows april 23 2012 first installation. Which is about right when I started using ubuntu?
would it be simple (i may be wrong) just to check software centre, while in there click on 'history' and scroll down to the bottom of your installed updates. Mine shows april 23 2012 first installation. Which is about right when I started using ubuntu?
answered Jan 10 '14 at 11:49
maple6661
61
61
add a comment |
add a comment |
up vote
-1
down vote
The command sudo grep ubiquity /var/log/installer/syslog | less
worked for me very well.
add a comment |
up vote
-1
down vote
The command sudo grep ubiquity /var/log/installer/syslog | less
worked for me very well.
add a comment |
up vote
-1
down vote
up vote
-1
down vote
The command sudo grep ubiquity /var/log/installer/syslog | less
worked for me very well.
The command sudo grep ubiquity /var/log/installer/syslog | less
worked for me very well.
edited Aug 21 '12 at 19:26
Eliah Kagan
81.1k20227364
81.1k20227364
answered Feb 9 '11 at 16:04
Bakhtiyor
4,339185676
4,339185676
add a comment |
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Ask Ubuntu!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.
Please pay close attention to the following guidance:
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2faskubuntu.com%2fquestions%2f1352%2fhow-can-i-tell-what-date-ubuntu-was-installed%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown