I'm writing this in Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS. I'm looking at Gnome Extensions for Ubuntu 18.04 that work with Gnome version 3.24 and breaks with version 3.26.

How can I find out using browser (google search doesn't tell me), apt list | grep ... or other means what version of Gnome Ubuntu 18.04 is using today?

Rebooting every time I want to know something about a version I haven't booted is inconvenient.

Test Results:

zcat /dev/nvme0n1p10/usr/share/doc/gnome-session-bin/changelog.Debian.gz | head -n1 gzip: /dev/nvme0n1p10/usr/share/doc/gnome-session-bin/changelog.Debian.gz: Not a directory

Important Note: I do not have 18.04 installed. I have 18.04 Unity installed. I want to know current known version would be installed so I can research bugs before installation.

EDIT: I'm not looking for the Gnome version of the current booted partition (as the duplicate candidate does) using:

$ apt-cache policy gnome-shell gnome-shell: Installed: (none) Candidate: 3.18.5-0ubuntu0.3 Version table: 3.18.5-0ubuntu0.3 500 500 xenial-updates/universe amd64 Packages 3.18.4-0ubuntu3 500 500 xenial/universe amd64 Packages

I'm looking for the gnome version for a partition that needs to be mounted first (18.04). Or simply a link to a website containing the current version numbers as of today for 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, etc.

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1 Answer

TLDR: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS uses GNOME 3.28 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS uses GNOME 3.18.

If you have installed GNOME as deb-packages, then you can visit packages.ubuntu.com and get info about gnome-session-bin:

  • trusty (14.04LTS) (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.9.90-0ubuntu12: amd64
  • trusty-updates (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.9.90-0ubuntu12.1: amd64
  • xenial (16.04LTS) (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.18.1.2-1ubuntu1: amd64
  • xenial-updates (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.18.1.2-1ubuntu1.16.04.2: amd64
  • bionic (18.04LTS) (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.28.1-0ubuntu2: amd64
  • bionic-updates (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.28.1-0ubuntu3: amd64
  • eoan (19.10) (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.34.1-1ubuntu2: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el s390x
  • focal (20.04LTS) (gnome): GNOME Session Manager - Minimal runtime
    3.36.0-2ubuntu1: amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x

On installed system you can use one of 

dpkg -l gnome-session-bin apt list gnome-session-bin | grep gnome

or directly view corresponding changelog files:

  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS:

    $ zcat /usr/share/doc/gnome-session-bin/changelog.Debian.gz | head -n1 gnome-session (3.18.1.2-1ubuntu1.16.04.2) xenial; urgency=medium

  • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS:

    $ zcat /usr/share/doc/gnome-session-bin/changelog.Debian.gz | head -n1 gnome-session (3.28.1-0ubuntu3) bionic; urgency=medium

  • any current Ubuntu (to be mounted):

    sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt zcat /mnt/usr/share/doc/gnome-session-bin/changelog.Debian.gz | head -n1

For Snap-packaged GNOME you can use snap list (below is example for 18.04 LTS):

$ snap list | grep gnome gnome-3-26-1604 3.26.0 64 stable/… canonical - gnome-calculator 3.28.1 170 stable/… canonical - gnome-characters 3.28.2 96 stable/… canonical - gnome-logs 3.28.2 34 stable/… canonical - gnome-system-monitor 3.26.0 41 stable/… canonical -
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