How to get the kernel version name from downloaded Ubuntu ISO

Say I have downloaded Ubuntu ISO from the official website of Ubuntu:

I have downloaded a file focal-desktop-amd64.iso and the extracted contents of this ISO file are

I am not able to get similar files like in installed Ubuntu 19.10, I have these files

/boot/initrd.img-5.3.0-26-generic /boot/vmlinuz-5.3.0-26-generic 

Is there a way to get these file names from the Downloaded ISO without installing it on the system?

2 Answers

You can loop mount first the iso file and then the squashfs file,

Create mountpoints

sudo mkdir /mnt/lp1 sudo mkdir /mnt/lp2 

Mount

sudo mount -o loop focal-desktop-amd64.iso /mnt/lp1 sudo mount -o loop /mnt/lp1/casper/filesystem.squashfs /mnt/lp2 

Check for the kernel version

$ sudo find /mnt/lp2 -name "linux-image-[0-9.-]*-generic" /mnt/lp2/usr/share/doc/linux-image-5.4.0-9-generic 

My focal iso file was not downloaded today, you may find a newer kernel version.

Please note that there are several files, that belong to the kernel.

Double click the .iso and then double click /casper/filesystem.squashf by opening the mounted .iso in a file manager window.

To verify that archive mounter (NOT manager!) can do this, right click each of the files and see that archive mounter is a viable option, perhaps subordinate to the "open with" suggestions.

The .iso file structure has been available since at least 2012 (Ubuntu 12.04) and the .squashf file structure sometime before 2018 (Ubuntu 18.04).

Flavours of Ubuntu, such as Xubuntu 18.04, cannot do this but then even more fundamental file/volume/disk functionality is lacking such as gparted, disk-utility (palimpsest), etc.

Then open a terminal window (ctr) ... to be completed