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Find distro name and/or version/release

Terminal - Find distro name and/or version/release
cat /etc/*-release
2009-02-26 08:22:01
User: sudopeople
Functions: cat
9
Up
Down
Find distro name and/or version/release

Works for most distributions, tested on Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, Gentoo, SUSE, RedHat.

Debian and Slackware:

cat /etc/*version
Show sample output | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There is 1 alternative - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

Whe you have a fresh install you can see the distro name in:

cat /etc/issue

When you are in terminal login screen the escape sequence provide information about the system.

Comment by starchox 224 weeks and 5 days ago
lsb-release -a

parses the /etc/lsb-release file, too.

Comment by raphink 224 weeks and 5 days ago

bump for starchox.. I use that command, and I like it because it also works on non-linux systems... like hp-ux, aix, solaris etc.

It's really sad however that we cant all agree to agree on an interface for this

if system Q wants to use file M that's fine.. lets just get a common interface and either export it or make a common function like distroname or osname

if its just a bash script that says select case blah blah call cat /etc/issue; cat /etc/*release than fine :-) or even a symlink to whereever they really keep it.

if im not lazy maybe ill right and post this later.

Comment by EdelRSX 224 weeks and 5 days ago

bump for starchox.. I use that command, and I like it because it also works on non-linux systems... like hp-ux, aix, solaris etc.

It's really sad however that we cant all agree to agree on an interface for this

if system Q wants to use file M that's fine.. lets just get a common interface and either export it or make a common function like distroname or osname

if its just a bash script that says select case blah blah call cat /etc/issue; cat /etc/*release than fine :-) or even a symlink to whereever they really keep it.

if im not lazy maybe ill right and post this later.

Comment by EdelRSX 224 weeks and 5 days ago

Does not work for me.

Comment by hendry 164 weeks and 5 days ago

@hendry

cat /etc/*release*

is newest and best.

Comment by sudopeople 118 weeks and 4 days ago

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