How can I find the current OS in Python? [duplicate]

Question

As the title says, how can I find the current operating system in python?

Costumer

Windows: os.name == 'nt'. Mac/Linux/BSD: os.name == 'posix'. – Colligate

Answer 1

I usually use sys.platform to get the platform. sys.platform will distinguish between linux, other unixes, and OS X, while os.name is "posix" for all of them.

For much more detailed information, use the platform module. This has cross-platform functions that will give you information on the machine architecture, OS and OS version, version of Python, etc. Also it has os-specific functions to get things like the particular linux distribution.

Sweetheart

I would not recommend either of these two. The more reliable way is platform.system(). See this answer: https://mcmap.net/q/53315/-how-to-identify-which-os-python-is-running-on. – Houston

Answer 2

If you want user readable data but still detailed, you can use platform.platform()

>>> import platform
>>> platform.platform()
'Linux-3.3.0-8.fc16.x86_64-x86_64-with-fedora-16-Verne'

platform also has some other useful methods:

>>> platform.system()
'Windows'
>>> platform.release()
'XP'
>>> platform.version()
'5.1.2600'

Here's a few different possible calls you can make to identify where you are, linux_distribution and dist seem to have gone from recent python versions, so they have a wrapper function here.

import platform
import sys

def linux_distribution():
  try:
    return platform.linux_distribution()
  except:
    return "N/A"

def dist():
  try:
    return platform.dist()
  except:
    return "N/A"

print("""Python version: %s
dist: %s
linux_distribution: %s
system: %s
machine: %s
platform: %s
uname: %s
version: %s
mac_ver: %s
""" % (
sys.version.split('\n'),
str(dist()),
linux_distribution(),
platform.system(),
platform.machine(),
platform.platform(),
platform.uname(),
platform.version(),
platform.mac_ver(),
))

The outputs of this script ran on a few different systems (Linux, Windows, Solaris, MacOS) and architectures (x86, x64, Itanium, power pc, sparc) is available here: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/OS_flavor_name_version

e.g. Solaris on sparc gave:

Python version: ['2.6.4 (r264:75706, Aug  4 2010, 16:53:32) [C]']
dist: ('', '', '')
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')
system: SunOS
machine: sun4u
platform: SunOS-5.9-sun4u-sparc-32bit-ELF
uname: ('SunOS', 'xxx', '5.9', 'Generic_122300-60', 'sun4u', 'sparc')
version: Generic_122300-60
mac_ver: ('', ('', '', ''), '')

or MacOS on M1

Python version: ['2.7.16 (default, Dec 21 2020, 23:00:36) ', '[GCC Apple LLVM 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.30.4) [+internal-os, ptrauth-isa=sign+stri'] 
dist: ('', '', '') 
linux_distribution: ('', '', '') 
system: Darwin 
machine: arm64 
platform: Darwin-20.3.0-arm64-arm-64bit 
uname: ('Darwin', 'Nautilus.local', '20.3.0', 'Darwin Kernel Version 20.3.0: Thu Jan 21 00:06:51 PST 2021; root:xnu-7195.81.3~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8101', 'arm64', 'arm') 
version: Darwin Kernel Version 20.3.0: Thu Jan 21 00:06:51 PST 2021; root:xnu-7195.81.3~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8101 
mac_ver: ('10.16', ('', '', ''), 'arm64')

Individual

platform.linux_distribution() is depreciated, to be removed in 3.8. Consider changing to the distro package. See here for more details. – Kaminski

@TylerGubala Makes sence that it is deprecated, since it was not available on all platforms to begin with. It was always spotty but I included it here, thank you for pointing this out. – Individual

This is much cleaner than the other options. – Graben

@JensTimmerman But I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 a few months ago (using the free upgrade provided by Microsoft for eligible devices). But when I run print(platform.system(), platform.release()), it prints Windows 10. Can you tell me what the reason is and how do I resolve it? – Tachyphylaxis

@Tachyphylaxis sounds like this could be a bug in Windows, in python, or expected behaviour, I don't have access to a win10 or 11 machine right now so I can not test this, you could try opening an issue for python, the logich here doens't seem to include windows 11 yet: github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Lib/platform.py – Individual

FYI: AttributeError: module 'platform' has no attribute 'dist' MacOS 12.3.1 python_version 3.9.5 – Lode

@Lode yep, seems like it's also gone on python 3.10 on my linux machine, I've updated my answer and also added int inside a wrapper function. – Individual

Thanks @JensTimmerman! Also if anyone wants to get the name of the MacOS they are using I built this: https://mcmap.net/q/94005/-python-39-s-quot-platform-mac_ver-quot-reports-incorrect-macos-version & also posted it on my github. – Lode

Answer 3

import os
print(os.name)

This gives you the essential information you will usually need. To distinguish between, say, different editions of Windows, you will have to use a platform-specific method.

Saire

On the mac, os.name gives "posix", which for my case does not help - sys.platform did the trick – Audriaaudrie

in windows it is showing nt only – Definition

On solaris, it's showing posix too. :p – Cilla

Answer 4

https://docs.python.org/library/os.html

To complement Greg's post, if you're on a posix system, which includes MacOS, Linux, Unix, etc. you can use os.uname() to get a better feel for what kind of system it is.

Idler

Although your answer was fist and was correct, Greg Hewgill's answer was more complete, I appreciate your answer and advise you to, post more then just links, in the future. – Costumer

Yeah, it's the fastest gun in the west problem. I tend to post things quickly then edit with more info. – Idler

I usually wait to answer my questions an I come back to them to see if there are any better posts even after I have accepted one. – Costumer

Answer 5

Something along the lines:

import os
if os.name == "posix":
    print(os.system("uname -a"))
# insert other possible OSes here
# ...
else:
    print("unknown OS")

Tails

Your answer is the real answer – Aoudad