how to tell which OS with command line

nasridine · 01-21-2010, 10:48 AM

Just want to know what OS is, Fedora/RH/...
Tried the following on a redhat machine:
uname -o : GNU/Linux
less /proc/version:
Linux version 2.6.18-164.el5 (mockbuild@x86-002.build.bos.redhat.com) (gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-46)) #1 SMP Tue Aug 18 15:51:54 EDT 2009

what is the right command to do it?

rweaver · 01-21-2010, 11:17 AM

Usually the distributor of the particular revision includes a file to tell you what it is...

Code:

cat /etc/*{ersion,elease}

Most systems maintain some kind of identifier like that, sometimes the motd or uname -a will include telling information also.

Sometimes the kernel will tell you:

Code:

dmesg | head -10

nkd · 01-21-2010, 11:30 AM

use uname -r , the output shall be
[user@localhost etc]# uname -r
2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686

means it is a fedora 10 machine.

thanks
nishith

catkin · 01-21-2010, 12:12 PM

There is no universal method to find the distro name. A script function in this LQ post encapsulates some of the methods.

rweaver · 01-21-2010, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nkd

use uname -r , the output shall be
[user@localhost etc]# uname -r
2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686

means it is a fedora 10 machine.

thanks
nishith

There are sometimes problems with that method determining between centos and redhat. Both report the same for kernel version, although it's good for sorting out fedora. Debian for instance doesn't report anything regarding itself with a uname -r (2.6.26-2-686) and an -a reports additional information you can sometimes sort through to tell the distribution.