On a Debian system:
$ cat /etc/issue.net
Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
$ cat /etc/debian_version
4.0

[QUOTE=UpstreamSwimmer;3026265]Not a goofy question at all. I just got an Eee PC and knew it's runs Xandros but didn't know which version of Debian it's based on. This would be useful when searching for repos.

For the record, I looked in /etc/issue, as maanga mentioned, and found it's Debian 4.0 (etch).

As mentioned in maanga's link, /proc/version returned even more specific info: Debian 4.1.1-21.

So I got completely lost trying to find out exactly this. I wanted to upgrade FireFox from ver 2 to 3.6 but I didn't know what distro. For the smart alecks who said look at the CD - first of all it's a DVD which is why I got this ASUS EEPC for free in the first place. It doesn't have a DVD and the guy who had it couldn't figure out how to load the OS even though it came with the disks.

Anyway I was able to load linux w/o difficulty but using the shell was new to me so just to clarify for the next newbie

First you have to get a console window open

2 ways

type "ctrl alt T"

or

open home (icon bottom left) then work/file manager/tools/open console window

you should see

/home/user>


type in

cat /proc/version


note the space beween cat and /proc

it should show something like this:

home/user> cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.21.4-eeepc (root@i386-coreos) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)) #2 Tue Jul 8 12:00:00 EDT 2008
/home/user>



Good luck newbies hope this helps any asus eee pc types.

P.S. Still haven't figured out how to update firefox

but i had to comment on the rudeness of some of the replies.
not everyone is using linux on their home pc which they installed. Not everyone who finds themselves on a linux machine is an expert who thinks re-installing their kernel once a week is fun.

There are many ways of finding yourself on a linux machine, most of these are not by choice.

lsb_release -a

Thank you, this helped me out greatly. For those that laughed at not knowing what version of linux is running - it's only laughable if 'you' in fact installed it. If you are shelling into a linux O/S that you need to install drivers to than this is a very useful tool.

Ya know it may seem like a dumb question but I found myself asking it this AM I downloaded gnome 3 and it was 900 mb file and installed it. I seriously do not know which version i am running now I tried to go to terminal and update with the sudo command but it does not work. I am clueless as to what commands to use So I used the command "uname -a && cat /etc/*release"
it came up with this.
Linux linux-imqh 2.6.37.6-0.7-default #1 SMP 2011-07-21 02:17:24 +0200 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
openSUSE 11.4 (i586)
VERSION = 11.4
CODENAME = Celadon
Any help here would be good because none of the commands that I know are working.
help

The output already shows that you are running the 32 bit version (i686) of openSuse 11.4, what else do you want to know?

I guess I am good now After I posted that message I didn't even know that opensuse was a version on linux. Now I do
thanks for the reply though
Al