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When was your OS installed?

Terminal - When was your OS installed?
ls -lct /etc | tail -1 | awk '{print $6, $7}'
2009-09-03 10:26:37
User: MrMerry
Functions: awk ls tail
9
Up
Down
When was your OS installed?

Show time and date when you installed your OS.

Show sample output | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There are 2 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
df / | awk '{print $1}' | grep dev | xargs tune2fs -l | grep create
2009-02-16 18:45:03
User: Kaio
Functions: awk df grep tune2fs xargs
7
Up
Down
Check the age of the filesystem

Very useful set of commands to know when your file system was created.

Show sample output | Comments (4) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
ls -lct /etc/ | tail -1 | awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'
2009-09-04 16:52:50
User: peshay
Functions: awk ls tail
4
Up
Down
When was your OS installed?

shows also time if its the same year or shows year if installed before actual year and also works if /etc is a link (mac os)

Show sample output | Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious
ls -ldct /lost+found |awk '{print $6, $7}'
2009-09-08 06:16:04
User: realist
Functions: awk ls
3
Up
Down
When was your OS installed?
Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

better to print out '$8' also. It lists the year of installation (or, if a new installation, the time).

Comment by verboEse 194 weeks ago

so this is cause the files in /etc and /bin /sbin are not usually modified after the first install. Is there a generic command for all disrtos cause i use

rpm -qi basesystem

on rpm based systems to get the install date cause the basesystem is the first package to be installed

Comment by rmenn 194 weeks ago

yeah, this is supposed to work on all systems, since they all contain something like a Linux Standard Base /etc/lsb-* file or dir in /etc which isn't modified after install. In fedora's case you also have /etc/system-release

Comment by MrMerry 194 weeks ago

another way on a dpkg-based (debian/ubuntu) system is to look at the timestamps on the files in /var/lib/dpkg/info/ - they gives the times of each packaging system action.

Comment by bwoodacre 193 weeks and 6 days ago

mmmmm,

macbook-2:~ rick$ ls -lct /etc/ | tail -1 | awk '{print $6, $7, $8}'

8 Jun 07:39

macbook-2:~ rick$

macbook-2:~ rick$ ls -lct /etc | tail -1 | awk '{print $6, $7}'

15 Aug

15 Aug wins for Snow Leopard

Comment by gikku 193 weeks and 4 days ago

Better to check /lost+found as it's generally less likely to have been recreated since installation...

Comment by realist 193 weeks and 2 days ago

Your point of view

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