Where do I find the version of a Linux kernel source tree?

Question

I have downloaded from a hardware vendor just a tarball of their Linux source tree (no Git repository metadata), is there a way to find out the version number of the kernel?

Is the version number usually stored in a file somewhere in the source tree?

I'd like to be able to do this without compiling and running the kernel.

Answer 1

You can find the version by running

make kernelversion 

In the source tree

Answer 2

Check the top-level Makefile, an example of which is here. At the top of that, you should see something like:

VERSION = 3 PATCHLEVEL = 1 SUBLEVEL = 0 EXTRAVERSION = -pax NAME = Custom Pax Version 

The (admittedly minor) advantage of this method is that you only need the ability to view the files themselves rather than having to run a build process.

Answer 3

Yet another solution: in the older times include/linux/version.h, currently include/generated/uapi/linux/version.h, but only after at least a partially successful compilation.