๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
launchpad.net โ€บ ubuntu โ€บ +source โ€บ binutils
binutils package in Ubuntu
dbg: GNU binary utilities, for arm-linux-gnueabihf target (debug symbols) binutils-common: Common files for the GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities binutils-dbg: GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities(debug symbols) binutils-dev: GNU binary utilities (BFD development files) binutils-doc: Documentation for the GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities binutils-for-build: GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities for the build architecture binutils-for-host: GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities for the host architecture binutils-
collection of tools for operating on object files; most notably include the GNU assembler and linker; typically used in conjunction with the GNU compiler collection (GCC)
The GNU Binary Utilities, or binutils, is a collection of programming tools maintained by the GNU Project for working with executable code including assembly, linking and many other development operations. The tools โ€ฆ Wikipedia
Factsheet
Developer GNU Project
Stable release 2.46.1
/ 8 June 2026
Factsheet
Developer GNU Project
Stable release 2.46.1
/ 8 June 2026
๐ŸŒ
GNU
gnu.org โ€บ software โ€บ binutils
Binutils - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
The binutils have been ported to most major Unix variants as well as Wintel systems, and their main reason for existence is to give the GNU system (and GNU/Linux) the facility to compile and link programs.
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
packages.ubuntu.com โ€บ focal โ€บ binutils
Ubuntu โ€“ Details of package binutils in focal
March 22, 2022 - two or more packages specified (binutils focal) Content Copyright ยฉ 2026 Canonical Ltd.; See license terms. Ubuntu is a trademark of Canonical Ltd. Learn more about this site.
๐ŸŒ
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org โ€บ wiki โ€บ GNU_Binutils
GNU Binutils - Wikipedia
May 18, 2026 - The GNU Binary Utilities, or binutils, is a collection of programming tools maintained by the GNU Project for working with executable code including assembly, linking and many other development operations.
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
packages.ubuntu.com โ€บ binutils
Ubuntu โ€“ Package Search Results -- binutils
May 24, 2023 - resolute (devel): GNU binary utilities (BFD development files) 2.46-3ubuntu2: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el riscv64 s390x ยท jammy (22.04LTS) (devel): Cross-binutils for DOS using DJGPP [universe] 2.35.1+dfsg-1: amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el riscv64 s390x
๐ŸŒ
Ui
community.ui.com โ€บ questions โ€บ How-do-I-install-the-newly-required-binutils-on-Ubuntu โ€บ e0545511-ba9b-4d51-b88c-8718a6f804f0
How do I install the newly required "binutils" on Ubuntu? | Ubiquiti Community
Homepage: http://www.ubnt.com/unifi ... (< 2.23.52.20130612-1+3), binutils-mingw-w64-x86-64 (< 2.23.52.20130612-1+3) Provides: binutils-gold, elf-binutils Description: GNU assembler, linker and binary utilities The programs in this package are used to assemble, link and manipulate ...
Top answer
1 of 2
5

They're [probably] all the same (gold has an extra version -- see the end of this post).
But consider the rest of this answer code-golf for the best way to extract the versions.

dpkg -L binutils | grep "/usr/bin/" | xargs -i sh -c "{} --version"

Does pretty much what roadmr's does.

dpkg -L binutils | xargs -i sh -c "{} --version 2>/dev/null || exit 0"

Tries to run everything dpkg -L ... outputs. Obviously only the executables will run so we just need to redirect error (and make xargs ignore them).

dpkg -L binutils | xargs -i bash -c '[[ -x "{}" && -f "{}" ]] && {} --version'

Test that we're dealing with an executable file rather than filtering path.


sudo apt-get install parallel
dpkg -L binutils | grep /usr/bin/ | parallel {} --version
dpkg -L binutils | parallel {} --version 2>/dev/null
dpkg -L binutils | parallel '[[ -x "{}" && -f "{}" ]] && {} --version'

This time we use GNU parallel to do the same approaches. parallel lets us skip over certain inconveniences in xargs (like it not being able to skip over any non-zero exit code. man parallel is a genuinely good read.


With all that said, while shorter, all my examples fork out into a new shell (unavoidable with xargs, and sort of the point of parallel) so they're all somewhat slower than roadmr's. The first is the quickest.

Edit: Until now...

sh <(dpkg -L binutils | awk '/bin\// {print $0 " --version"}')

Only two forks (sort of) and it's as fast as the for loop (while much shorter).


Edit: They're actually not quite the same. gold has a secondary version (1.11) which the other commands don't.

$ sh <(dpkg -L binutils | awk '/bin\// {print $0 " --version"}') | \
    grep Binutils | sort -u | column -t
GNU  addr2line  (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  ar         (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  assembler  (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  c++filt    (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  dwp        (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  elfedit    (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  gold       (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu   2.23.52.20130913)  1.11
GNU  gprof      (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  ld         (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  nm         (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  objcopy    (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  objdump    (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  ranlib     (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  readelf    (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  size       (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  strings    (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
GNU  strip      (GNU  Binutils  for  Ubuntu)  2.23.52.20130913
2 of 2
2

Try this:

for util in `dpkg --listfiles binutils |grep "\/usr\/bin\/"`; do
    echo -n "$util -> "; echo "" | $util --version
done

This gets all the binaries in the binutils packages and queries each one with its --version parameter. I echo an empty string for those that expect input in the terminal.

Find elsewhere
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
packages.ubuntu.com โ€บ source โ€บ focal โ€บ binutils
Ubuntu โ€“ Details of source package binutils in focal
two or more packages specified (binutils focal) Content Copyright ยฉ 2025 Canonical Ltd.; See license terms. Ubuntu is a trademark of Canonical Ltd. Learn more about this site.
๐ŸŒ
Linux Today
linuxtoday.com โ€บ home โ€บ blog
Introduction to GNU Binutils: A Beginnerโ€™s Guide
March 10, 2025 - GNU Binutils (short for โ€œBinary Utilitiesโ€) is a set of command-line tools for handling object files, executables, and binary data. ... Learn how to upgrade from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to 26.04 LTS effortlessly.
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
ubuntu.com โ€บ security โ€บ notices โ€บ USN-6581-1
USN-6581-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities | Ubuntu security notices | Ubuntu
January 15, 2024 - It was discovered that GNU binutils incorrectly handled memory management operations in several of its functions, which could lead to excessive memory consumption due to memory leaks. An attacker could possibly use these issues to cause a denial of service.
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
ubuntu.com โ€บ security โ€บ notices โ€บ USN-7899-1
USN-7899-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities | Ubuntu security notices | Ubuntu
December 1, 2025 - It was discovered that GNU binutils incorrectly handled certain inputs. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a crash or execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
packages.ubuntu.com โ€บ xenial โ€บ binutils
Ubuntu โ€“ Error
July 21, 2021 - two or more packages specified (binutils xenial) Content Copyright ยฉ 2025 Canonical Ltd.; See license terms. Ubuntu is a trademark of Canonical Ltd. Learn more about this site.
๐ŸŒ
Pkgs.org
pkgs.org โ€บ download โ€บ binutils
Binutils Download (APK, DEB, EOPKG, IPK, PKG, RPM, TGZ, TXZ, XBPS, XZ, ZST)
Download binutils packages for Adรฉlie, AlmaLinux, Alpine, ALT Linux, Amazon Linux, Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD, KaOS, Mageia, NetBSD, OpenMandriva, openSUSE, OpenWrt, PCLinuxOS, Rocky Linux, Slackware, Solus, Ubuntu, Void Linux
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
ubuntu.com โ€บ security โ€บ notices โ€บ USN-7306-1
USN-7306-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities | Ubuntu security notices | Ubuntu
February 26, 2025 - It was discovered that GNU binutils in nm tool is affected by an incorrect access control. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a crash. This issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 24.10.
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
ubuntu.com โ€บ security โ€บ notices โ€บ USN-7423-1
USN-7423-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities | Ubuntu security notices | Ubuntu
It was discovered that ld in GNU binutils incorrectly handled certain files. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a crash, expose sensitive information or execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 24.10.
๐ŸŒ
Medium
soufianebouchaa.medium.com โ€บ how-to-compile-binutils-on-ubuntu-debian-ec268674b759
How to compile binutils on Ubuntu/Debian. (Upgrade or Downgrade) - Soufiane Bouchaara - Medium
March 1, 2022 - To downgrade/Upgrade Binutil version ,โ€‹ you will need first this package for the compiling process: ... wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.34.tar.gztar -xf binutils-2.34.tar.gzcd binutils-2.34
๐ŸŒ
Ubuntu
ubuntu.com โ€บ security โ€บ notices โ€บ USN-6544-1
USN-6544-1: GNU binutils vulnerabilities | Ubuntu security notices | Ubuntu
December 11, 2023 - It was discovered that GNU binutils incorrectly handled certain COFF files. An attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a crash or execute arbitrary code. This issue only affected Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.