How to show what distribution is installed?

Scormen · 04-02-2009, 03:11 PM

Hi all,

It isn't a real software, but a shell scripting question.

I'm looking how it is possible to show what Linux distribution is installed. This should be done in a shell script.

I found "cat /etc/*release". But, does this work in all the major Linux distributions? And, how can I get that result in "one word"?

Thanks,
Kris

rizwanrafique · 04-02-2009, 04:13 PM

Check /etc/issue as well.

Scormen · 04-02-2009, 04:16 PM

Thanks for your answer, rizwanrafique.

But, how can I test with a shell script what distribution it is?

Grtz,
Kris

rjlee · 04-02-2009, 04:29 PM

This might help:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Admin/release-files.html

Of course, you should note that there are several thousand known distributions of Linux, and more appearing all the time, so if you're trying to do something that behaves differently on different distributions then you may have your work cut out for you

Scormen · 04-03-2009, 02:27 AM

Thanks for that list!
I just need the "major" distro's, so it isn't that much work.

Grtz,
Kris

farslayer · 04-03-2009, 07:41 AM

Something else that may be of use if the distro si lsb compliant..

Code:

user@it-lenny:~$ lsb_release -a
Distributor ID:	Debian
Description:	Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (lenny)
Release:	5.0
Codename:	lenny

man lsb_release for command line options

Scormen · 04-03-2009, 07:45 AM

Indeed, but that is not working for all distro's. Look eg at Fedora.

jf.argentino · 04-03-2009, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scormen

Indeed, but that is not working for all distro's. Look eg at Fedora.

For FEDORA core 8 it works, so I think that for more recent version it will work too...