I want to write a script that can run on all the different Linux Distributions (Mandrake, Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, Slackware, Lycoris....) and will print for me the name of the Linux Distribution and its version. The output of the script will be something like: "This machine runs Red Hat Linux Version 7.2" or "This machine runs Mandrake Linux Version 8.2"...

I tried using the uname command but that gives only the kernel version number and does not give the name of the distribution. I tried a number of ways to get the information (for example in case of Red Hat there is a file /etc/redhat-release that contains this information) but could not find a general way that will work on all the distributions.

Is there a way to do this ? Any suggestions will be of great help.

Thanks.

There isn't really any standard way common to all distributions. If you want that information you will have to get it from the /etc/<distro>-release file. Not sure if all distributions do that though.
I know redhat, mandrake and suse do though. Just test for the presence of the different files. I've got an LFS system and the only way to recognize that is because I did a touch /etc/lfs-<version> like the book suggests. But I guess there would be a million more ways to identify a certain system.

in most cases use the -a flag with the uname option for all information.

uname -a

but other than that, yeah, most distro's have a version file like Mik said, Slackware has this file too.

Thanks Mik, trickykid.

I hate to dig up a really really old thread, but... I was wondering how exactly uname goes about finding the name of a distro. In my case, I would like to make my own "distro" customized from the live cd of Ubuntu. I would like uname -s and uname -o to print the name of my distro instead of "Ubuntu"

Also, on a slightly unrelated note, I was wondering if this change would affect the way grub recognized the name of the distro. what I mean by that is... When I install GRUB on a computer that already has a linux distro on it, it normally will correctly identify the name and version of the distro and add it to it's menu.lst. I am wondering how GRUB goes about doing this.

the name of the distro can be fount in two files

and
but I don't recommend changing them cause that would make some apps stop working
like ubuntu-tweak for example which dose different tasks to each version and if your version is not recognized some functions will not work

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That is correct for many distros but not for all.

The shell script function in this LQ post may help.

There is a more complete list of /etc/*[-_]release files here.

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thank you. My question is answered

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This thread is quite old, and I found it while googling.
I have found a link: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/find-li...ersion-number/

It provides the simple shell commands to find about distros. But I think I'm too late to post this link in this thread!

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Hi,

Yes, the thread is quite old. Since you did contribute in a positive constructive sense then I will politely add: Please do not resurrect necro(dead) threads.

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