Also try
cat /etc/*release*
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How to check what version of Linux installed in my machine
How do I check what is the Linux version installed on my machine? and how do I check for the system uptime
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Answers
elease Information File
Most of the Linux distributions maintain release information file in an/etc/directory. Here is the list of files on some of the well known Linux distributions:
Novell SUSE /etc/SuSE-release
Red Hat /etc/redhat-release, /etc/redhat_version
Fedora /etc/fedora-release
Slackware /etc/slackware-release, /etc/slackware-version
Debian /etc/debian_release, /etc/debian_version,
Mandrake /etc/mandrake-release
Yellow dog /etc/yellowdog-release
Sun JDS /etc/sun-release
Solaris/Sparc /etc/release
Gentoo /etc/gentoo-release
UnitedLinux /etc/UnitedLinux-release
ubuntu /etc/lsb-release
Using system command uname and contents of the release files you can write scripts of programs to help to detect distribution.
#!/bin/sh
# Detects which OS and if it is Linux then it will detect which Linux Distribution.
OS=`uname -s`
REV=`uname -r`
MACH=`uname -m`
GetVersionFromFile()
{
VERSION=`cat $1 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*VERSION.*=\ // `
}
if [ "${OS}" = "SunOS" ] ; then
OS=Solaris
ARCH=`uname -p`
OSSTR="${OS} ${REV}(${ARCH} `uname -v`)"
elif [ "${OS}" = "AIX" ] ; then
OSSTR="${OS} `oslevel` (`oslevel -r`)"
elif [ "${OS}" = "Linux" ] ; then
KERNEL=`uname -r`
if [ -f /etc/redhat-release ] ; then
DIST='RedHat'
PSUEDONAME=`cat /etc/redhat-release | sed s/.*\(// | sed s/\)//`
REV=`cat /etc/redhat-release | sed s/.*release\ // | sed s/\ .*//`
elif [ -f /etc/SuSE-release ] ; then
DIST=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' '| sed s/VERSION.*//`
REV=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*=\ //`
elif [ -f /etc/mandrake-release ] ; then
DIST='Mandrake'
PSUEDONAME=`cat /etc/mandrake-release | sed s/.*\(// | sed s/\)//`
REV=`cat /etc/mandrake-release | sed s/.*release\ // | sed s/\ .*//`
elif [ -f /etc/debian_version ] ; then
DIST="Debian `cat /etc/debian_version`"
REV=""
fi
if [ -f /etc/UnitedLinux-release ] ; then
DIST="${DIST}[`cat /etc/UnitedLinux-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/VERSION.*//`]"
fi
OSSTR="${OS} ${DIST} ${REV}(${PSUEDONAME} ${KERNEL} ${MACH})"
fi
echo ${OSSTR}
Using system command uname and contents of the release files you can write your own program to detect the OS or which Linux distribution is installed. You can refer
http://cvs.gnome.org/viewc
See http://www.novell.com/docu
for all documentation regarding SUSE Enterprise Server 10.
For the uptime, try the commands "uptime" (without the quotation marks). The command "top" (without the quotation marks) will also give you your uptime on the top line of its output.
When people say "version" of Linux, they usually mean "distribution". A version of Linux applies to the kernel. The latest version is about 2.6.21. A distribution is, for example, Fedora, SuSE or Ubuntu.
The command "uname -a" (without the quotation marks) should give you your version. The following (long) command, will, hopefully, give you information about your distribution:
for this in /etc/SuSE-release /etc/redhat-release /etc/redhat_version /etc/fedora-release /etc/slackware-release /etc/slackware-version /etc/debian_release /etc/debian_version /etc/mandrake-release /etc/yellowdog-release /etc/sun-release /etc/release /etc/gentoo-release /etc/issue /etc/issue.logo ; do cat $this 2> /dev/null ; done
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by: BibliophagePosted on 2007-07-05 at 09:14:42ID: 19425208
The actual 'version' is greatly variable, depending on whether you want to know the kernel version, the distribution itself, or release.
From a command prompt, the command 'uname -a' should give you the kernel version. Putting that string into Google will generally cross-reference it into a particular distribution release version.
To check the uptime, most Linux systems will accept 'uptime' as a command line option. It'll generally show you everything in days.