What System Distribution is installed

pnicos · 06-18-2007, 09:41 PM

When I putty into a server (linux)
How do I find out what distribution of linux is on that server. Not the kernal #.# , but Redhat 9 or CentOS 4.2 or debian X. Full detail of the actual instalation and any related information?

Note it must be command line based, the command [uname] is not any help!

thanks nico

macemoneta · 06-18-2007, 09:42 PM

This should do it:

cat /etc/*release

pnicos · 06-18-2007, 10:03 PM

With: /etc/*release

On the one machine the result was: CentOS release 4.2 (Final)

but on the other: cat: /etc/*release: No such file or directory

and as luck will have it, this is the one I did not install and need to know
what linux was installed.

Thanks

pixellany · 06-18-2007, 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by macemoneta

This should do it:

cat /etc/*release

So...I'm on Mepis 6.5 and the above says it is Ubuntu 6.06......

The world is imperfect

Other ways to tell:
Package Manager--many packages will include the distro name
/boot files---kernel and other files may have hints

macemoneta · 06-18-2007, 10:09 PM

Well, if the distribution is LSB (Linux Standards Base) compliant, you can try:

lsb_release -d

(note: might be lsb-release on some distributions from online docs).

pixellany · 06-18-2007, 10:13 PM

Which then reads that same file and comes back with the same answer....
My hunch is that Ubuntu is lsb-compliant and Mepis is not.

pnicos · 06-18-2007, 10:29 PM

Excellent:

The answer is [lsb_release –d]

The second server is: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r0 (etch)

This means thy installed the incorrect distribution (must be CentOS)

It is strange (every thing is strange with linux) that linux do not have better info on the
exact installation details (human readable) . With all the distributions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._distributions

Thank you, this one will go into my personal help file.