How To Find Exact Installation Date And Time Of Your Linux OS

by sk - Published August 2, 2017 - Updated August 3, 2019

I am always curious to know small interesting things about Linux. Today, a question popped out in my mind. How long have I been using my Arch Linux OS? I have no idea when I installed my Arch Linux first. It is working very well since it was installed. I am sure it was an year ago. But, I don't know the exact day. Have you ever wondered how long have you been using your Linux OS without a reinstall? Read on to find exact installation date and time of your Linux OS.

Find Exact Installation Date And Time Of Your Linux OS

If you use Arch Linux and its derivatives like Manjaro Linux, you can easily find how long have you been using it without a reinstall by analyzing the pacman logs as shown below.

$ head -n1 /var/log/pacman.log

Sample output from my Arch Linux system:

[2016-05-05 13:10] [PACMAN] Running 'pacman -r /mnt -Sy --print-format=%s --cachedir=/mnt/var/cache/pacman/pkg --noconfirm base sudo grub wireless_tools wpa_supplicant wpa_actiond netctl dialog os-prober'

As you see in the above, I am still using my first installation from May, 05 2016. Even though Arch Linux is rolling release model, I have never had to reinstall Arch Linux. It works perfectly well without breaking anything. I have 3 Arch Linux systems (One host and two vms) over the years, and I've
never had to "reinstall" even once. And, I am sure I am not going to
reinstall it anytime soon.

What If the logs are deleted already? No problem. You still can find out the installation time of your Linux OS.

Switch to root user. On Debian, Ubuntu systems, simply run the following command to switch to root user.

$ sudo su

Now, run any one of the following commands as root user.

# fs=$(df / | tail -1 | cut -f1 -d' ') && tune2fs -l $fs | grep created

Or,

# dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'

Or,

# tune2fs -l /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'

Replace /dev/sda1 with correct hdd drive partition.

It will display when the file system was originally created.

Sample output:

Filesystem created: Thu May 5 18:40:19 2016

These commands will work on all Linux distributions.

On Fedora, RHEL and its clones such as CentOS, you can find it using the following command:

$ sudo rpm -qi basesystem

Sample output from my CentOS 7 server:

Name : basesystem
Version : 10.0
Release : 7.el7.centos
Architecture: noarch
Install Date: Mon 24 Nov 2014 05:54:17 PM IST
Group : System Environment/Base
Size : 0
License : Public Domain
Signature : RSA/SHA256, Fri 04 Jul 2014 06:16:57 AM IST, Key ID 24c6a8a7f4a80eb5
Source RPM : basesystem-10.0-7.el7.centos.src.rpm
Build Date : Fri 27 Jun 2014 04:07:10 PM IST
Build Host : worker1.bsys.centos.org
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Packager : CentOS BuildSystem <http://bugs.centos.org>
Vendor : CentOS
Summary : The skeleton package which defines a simple CentOS Linux system Description :
Basesystem defines the components of a basic CentOS Linux
system (for example, the package installation order to use during bootstrapping). Basesystem should be in every installation of a system,
and it should never be removed.

Or, to display the installation date only, run this:

$ sudo rpm -qi basesystem | grep Install
Install Date: Mon 24 Nov 2014 05:54:17 PM IST


---

|03B|09lack |03P|09anther|03(|09RCS|03)|07

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com - (77:1/102)

On Monday August 05, 2019, Black Panther said to All...

How To Find Exact Installation Date And Time Of Your Linux OS

You learn something new every day!

frank!netsurge ! hysteriabbs.com ! zeus 1.7 ! amiga 4ooo
--- Zeus BBS 1.5
* Origin: hysteria bbs - hysteriabbs.com - amiga powered (77:1/111.0)

For the games your running are you doing that on a Linux OS or under Windows? I'm considering a move to Linux but trying to figure out how best to run
those games.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (77:3/102)

On 30 Aug 2019, Avon said the following...

For the games your running are you doing that on a Linux OS or under Windows? I'm considering a move to Linux but trying to figure out how
best to run those games.

I believe he's running on Debian. That would probably be the easiest way to
run those games via dosemu.


---

|03B|09lack |03P|09anther|03(|09RCS|03)|07

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com - (77:1/102)

On 29 Aug 2019 at 10:07p, Black Panther pondered and said...

I believe he's running on Debian. That would probably be the easiest way to run those games via dosemu.

How many gigs to provision for, for stuff like this?

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (77:3/102)

On 30 Aug 2019, Avon said the following...

I believe he's running on Debian. That would probably be the easiest to run those games via dosemu.

How many gigs to provision for, for stuff like this?

For disk space? I've got CRBBS running on a 1TB drive, and even after everything that's on that system, I still have about 700GB free.

That system is running on 8GB of memory as well...


---

|03B|09lack |03P|09anther|03(|09RCS|03)|07

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com - (77:1/102)

On 29 Aug 2019 at 10:33p, Black Panther pondered and said...

For disk space? I've got CRBBS running on a 1TB drive, and even after everything that's on that system, I still have about 700GB free.
That system is running on 8GB of memory as well...

No I was actually thinking memory... but 8-12 seems to be the preference from what I can gather. Thanks for the info BP :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (77:3/102)

From: Netsurge <netsurge@scinet-ftn.org>

On 2019-08-30 04:05:01 +0000, Avon said:

For the games your running are you doing that on a Linux OS or under Windows? I'm considering a move to Linux but trying to figure out how best to run those games.

Debian core with no X or gui. 8gb of memory and 120gb virtual drive.
It's all run under Vmware ESX
--
frank // netsurge
disksh0p!bbs % bbs.diskshop.ca % mystic goodness
SciNet ftn hq % https://diskshop.ca/scinet

.
--- Unison/2.2
* Origin: % SciNet ftn/nntp/email gateway % scinet-ftn.org % (77:77/5)

For the games your running are you doing that on a Linux OS or under Win I'm considering a move to Linux but trying to figure out how best to run those games.

Debian core with no X or gui. 8gb of memory and 120gb virtual drive.
It's all run under Vmware ESX

I use Ubuntu 18.04 on a digitalocean droplet. 4gb RAM. Nothing special. Oh,
and it actually does have a gui for running tradewars (TWGS).

I run a bunch of other things on this box, as well. Mystic has a small footprint.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (77:1/128)

For the games your running are you doing that on a Linux OS or under Windows? >>I'm considering a move to Linux but trying to figure out how best to run >>those games.

Debian core with no X or gui. 8gb of memory and 120gb virtual drive.
It's all run under Vmware ESX

Dumb question... if you are trying to run Windowz games, how do you do it
on linux without a GUI? Doesn't wine require X to be running?

Thanks!

---
* SLMR 2.1a * Computers make very fast, very efficient mistakes.
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (77:1/115)

Debian core with no X or gui. 8gb of memory and 120gb virtual drive. It's all run under Vmware ESX

Dumb question... if you are trying to run Windowz games, how do you do it on linux without a GUI? Doesn't wine require X to be running?

Most door games run on 16 bit DOS, which we can mostly emulate using DosEMU (though some DPMI stuff doesn't work at all - this mainly affects Tradewars 2002 as far as I can tell).

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: monterey bbs (77:1/128)

Dumb question... if you are trying to run Windowz games, how do you do it on linux without a GUI? Doesn't wine require X to be running?

I think Avon is looking to run dos based BBS doors, dosemu will do that just fine.

|15frank |08// |15netsurge
|07disksh0p|08!|07bbs |08% |07bbs.diskshop.ca |08% |07mystic goodness |11SciNet |03ftn hq |08% |07https://diskshop.ca/scinet

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/02 (Linux/64)
* Origin: % disksh0p!bbs % bbs.diskshop.ca % SciNet ftn hq % (77:1/100)

I think Avon is looking to run dos based BBS doors, dosemu will do that just fine.

Sorry, I was thinking "local" games... missed the bit about them being
doors. Thanks!

---
* SLMR 2.1a * Quark the Ferengi. Perot the Texan. Separated at birth?
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (77:1/115)