Which command to use to find name of operating system

pinga123 · 10-26-2009, 12:14 AM

Hi guys how would i know which distribution of unix i have installed in my machine?

sploot · 10-26-2009, 12:29 AM

Code:

uname -o

or if you want to know the particular kernel,

Code:

uname -r

catkin · 10-26-2009, 12:39 AM

There is no way which works on all Linux systems. See this post for one way of doing it.

Halpo · 10-26-2009, 12:40 AM

assuming it's a red-hat variant you can use

Code:

cat /etc/redhat-release

hurry_hui · 10-26-2009, 12:52 AM

You can also do 'cat /proc/version'

in my distro 'cat /etc/sabayon-release' will work, well, just like RH above.

Catkin is correct there is no universal way to do this on various distros. Just follow his link.

Btw, one of my distro is not listed there

catkin · 10-26-2009, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurry_hui

Btw, one of my distro is not listed there

Which one and how could the function be modified to test for it?

linuxlover.chaitanya · 10-26-2009, 01:24 AM

lsb_release -a though should work on major distributions.

hurry_hui · 10-26-2009, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catkin

Which one and how could the function be modified to test for it?

/etc/sabayon-release not available.

maybe adding

Code:

elif [[ -r '/etc/sabayon-release' ]]; then
        n='Sabayon'

Sorry, I am not good at programming.

catkin · 10-26-2009, 03:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxlover.chaitanya

lsb_release -a though should work on major distributions.

lsb_release has been in the Linux Standard Base (LSB) Core Specification since no later than 2004 when 2.0.1 was published and probably earlier. It would be interesting to know how many distros support it. It is not on my Slackware 13.0 system.

catkin · 10-26-2009, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurry_hui

Sorry, I am not good at programming.

But it looks perfect! Sabayon added to the original function now. Thanks for the info.

linuxlover.chaitanya · 10-26-2009, 03:38 AM

I find it on my Ubuntu, RHEL and CentOS. I do not have any other distribution at hand.

sploot · 10-26-2009, 11:01 AM

I wasn't aware that uname didnt work on all linux systems. Good to know

brianL · 10-26-2009, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sploot

I wasn't aware that uname didnt work on all linux systems. Good to know

It works, but doesn't tell you the distro:

Code:

Linux Slacklap 2.6.29.6-smp #1 SMP Mon Aug 17 00:18:05 CDT 2009 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual  CPU  T2330  @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

sploot · 10-26-2009, 11:14 AM

But it does tell Linux, Unix, BSD, etc. right? Maybe I misunderstood the OP's question. But I think I understand what he was going for now.

chrism01 · 10-26-2009, 06:24 PM

On Linux, i get 'Linux' & kernel version and various other things like SMP, 32/64 bit; depending on distro.
On HP I get HP-UX & release info; Solaris says SunOS, fqdn & version num etc.
Haven't got a BSD to look at.