How to know which Linux Distribution I'm using? [closed]

Asked 8/12, 2009 at 5:7 Answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:15

Moved to https://superuser.com/questions/80251/how-to-know-which-linux-distribution-im-using

How to know which Linux Distribution I'm using?

uname -a gives Linux xxxxxx.net 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL.wh1smp #1 SMP Fri Aug 14 15:48:17 MDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux How can I know this is Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora or Redhat?

I uses /etc/init.d/serviced restart for restarting serevices, seems it is not Redhat family

Update:

[~]$ cat /etc/issue
cat: /etc/issue: No such file or directory
[~]$ cat /etc/issue.net
cat: /etc/issue.net: No such file or directory
[~]$ lsb_release -a
-sh: lsb_release: command not found
[~]$ cat /etc/*-release
cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory
[~]$ cat /etc/*-version
cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory
[~]$ cat /etc/*release
cat: /etc/*release: No such file or directory
[~]$ cat /etc/*_release
cat: /etc/*_release: No such file or directory
[~]$ cat /etc/*version
cat: /etc/*version: No such file or directory
[~]$

Diplomatics answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:7 Comment(10)

are you connecting by terminal? – Sauceda 8/12, 2009 at 5:8

This should be on superuser or serverfault. It's not a programming question. – Volatilize 8/12, 2009 at 5:14

If you are looking for a reliable way to make your program behave accordingly on any given distribution, I'd suggest updating your question before its migrated. – Hendel 8/12, 2009 at 5:20

I don't want to program anything, I just want to get disto info for installing a package. – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:35

underscore, not hyphen, in /etc/redhat_release. Try /etc/redhat* – Prosciutto 8/12, 2009 at 5:40

no joy with underscore? Try rpm -qa | less, and see if there's any clues in the installed packages. – Prosciutto 8/12, 2009 at 5:42

[itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*release cat: /etc/*release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*_release cat: /etc/*_release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*version cat: /etc/*version: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:49

pm -qa | less A blank screen and at the end -sh: rpm: command not found – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:50

[itflux][~]$ echo $PATH /usr/kerberos/bin:/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin://bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 6:9

Hmm. Your PATH looks okay. See my answer below. I think it's Red Hat. – Sato 8/12, 2009 at 6:10

Try this:

cat /etc/*-release

You could also try /etc/*-version

Loch answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:9 Comment(3)

[itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-release cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-version cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:37

cat /etc/*[_-]release would be better: some distros use underscore, not hyphen. – Prosciutto 30/12, 2016 at 4:6

could you please explain how does cat work in this case? – Deirdredeism 5/7, 2018 at 16:46

If you have lsb_release command,

lsb_release -a

will tell you (or just use lsb_release -i).

lsb_release is in Linux Standard Base Core Specification.

Edit: Looks like you're on a Red Hat system. A google search on your uname output suggests so. This is not programmatic, of course!

Sato answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:11 Comment(4)

$ lsb_release -a -sh: lsb_release: command not found – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:36

Judging from this and your other answers, looks like you have a really old linux system. – Sato 8/12, 2009 at 5:42

lsb_relase was created to ease the pain of determining the distro easily from within a program. A lot of systems out in the wild and still in use lack this altogether. – Hendel 8/12, 2009 at 5:51

You're right. If someone is using that old a distribution, the first step should probably be to upgrade to a more recent version! :-) – Sato 8/12, 2009 at 5:56

/etc/issue or /etc/issue.net give a good clue. Newer distros provide /etc/lsb-release which make it easier to determine exact strings progmatically, i.e. distro name / major & minor release / web site, etc.

In the absence of /etc/lsb-release, its much more difficult, hence the creation of lsb-release.

As Alok said, it looks like you are on a rather ancient (or extremely sparse) system. I don't think this is a case that you can (reliably) progmatically determine with a few lines of code.

If all else fails, check to see what kind of package manager is in use (apt / rpm / others), check to see if /etc/init.d is a symlink (rpm / RH distros) or a directory (debian based distros) .. and you have a pretty good clue as to what you can expect to be present in the root file system as far as structure.

You can't please everyone :)

Hendel answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:10 Comment(4)

Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu) also have /etc/lsb-release. They also have the program lsb_release that will give you specific information (you don't have to parse the text file). – Jeopardous 8/12, 2009 at 5:14

@MichaelM: You're reading a file either way .. either directly opening /etc/lsb-release or scraping the output of lsb_release (either way, you're still reading a file even if its stdout). If doing this progmatically, its best to just parse the file yourself (imho) .. fewer moving parts that may or may not be present :) – Hendel 8/12, 2009 at 5:18

I uses /etc/init.d/serviced restart for restarting serevices, seems it is not Redhat family But apt-get and rpm are both giving command not found message – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:59

Seems like here's some info:

> cat /etc/issue
Welcome to SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 (i586) - Kernel \r (\l).

> uname -a
Linux boxname 2.6.5-7.244-smp #1 SMP Mon Dec 12 18:32:25 UTC 2005 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

> cat /etc/*-release
SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 (i586)
VERSION = 9
PATCHLEVEL = 3

Agnes answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:13 Comment(4)

Whohooo someone does not like the answer, let's hear your opinion ... I've quite often tried to figure out what's running on a box, these are some of the things I look at, it tells you the kernel version, sometimes even the distro name ... – Agnes 8/12, 2009 at 5:31

[itflux][~]$ cat /etc/issue cat: /etc/issue: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/issue.net cat: /etc/issue.net: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ lsb_release -a -sh: lsb_release: command not found [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-release cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-version cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:39

okay so you have not so standard linux, which is nothing new, but I assume at least uname -a give you some response ... – Agnes 8/12, 2009 at 5:55

"Some response" yes; but a useful response? Not generally. – Unsaid 28/7, 2016 at 6:55

A list the release filenames for the most common distros: Release files

And a function that might help you: Shell script

Sauceda answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:15 Comment(0)

EL stands for Enterprise Linux in this case, so I think RedHat or a clone (like CentOS). I don't know a good way to programatically find out what distro you're on; there's a few different clues for each one.

cat  /etc/redhat_release
cat /etc/debian_version

is a good start. (Note the Ubuntu doesn't modify /etc/debian_version when they pull changes from Debian, so my Ubuntu Karmic system has squeeze/sid in debian_version.)

Edit: forgot about lsb. Good call, Tim Post and Alok. The whole point of LSB is to give distro-independent ways to do things.

Prosciutto answered 8/12, 2009 at 5:12 Comment(7)

[itflux][~]$ cat /etc/redhat_release cat: /etc/redhat_release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/debian_version cat: /etc/debian_version: No such file – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:40

EL could also be SuSE's Enterprise Linux, aka sles. It uses RPM like RedHat. Don't remember how to check for it. – Prosciutto 8/12, 2009 at 5:43

Oh yeah, Suse has some commands on top of rpm. If you have yast2 or yum, you're on SuSE. Look in /etc/ for suse or novell. – Prosciutto 8/12, 2009 at 5:48

There is no suse or novell folders under /etc [itflux][~]$ yum -sh: yum: command not found – Diplomatics 8/12, 2009 at 5:52

I googled for your kernel version, and came up with surprisingly few results. rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/3331503/com/… does indicate that it's RHEL or CentOS. (CentOS = RHEL without the support contract. Same versions of everything. Not sure if they manage to make all their binaries identical, but they try.) – Prosciutto 8/12, 2009 at 6:12

It should be /etc/redhat-release and /etc/debian-version (hyphens, not underscores) – Interact 4/5, 2014 at 21:43

@Cocowalla: Ubuntu definitely still uses /etc/debian_version. If there are other Debian-derived distros that use - instead of _, maybe we need /etc/debian?version – Prosciutto 30/12, 2016 at 4:3

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