Catting /proc/version or uname will only show you information that has been set for compile into the kernel. Only the major distributions will put some special marks for identification, in the form such as custom kernel version tag or gcc version string. But this is not necessarily true especially if the kernel is a self compiled kernel.
For example, here is the /proc/version from my Slackware server:
Nothing indicates it's Slackware. Many distributions put its version information in the form of a file in /etc, so you can use that as a heuristic to find out.
For instance, for a few old machines for which I currently have access:
Slackware: /etc/slackware-version
Mandrake: /etc/mandrake-release
Red Hat: /etc/redhat-release
Fedora: /etc/fedora-release
I would not count on /etc/issue. I would venture to guess that possibly you could apply a major update and /etc/issue never changes. The file /etc/issue is sort of like a message of the day type file. On a SuSe machine I updated from 8.2 to 9.1 a year or so ago, that type of file did not update and the login prompt greeted you with an 8.2 banner despite the machine having been updated.
Just something to think about. The release and version files did update in my case but I would say that there is a chance these could be wrong also. But the /etc/issue would be lowest on my list to check.
This is an odd question and I didn't really know what category it fits. I just installed Ubuntu 12.10. During the installation process, the screen informed me that Windows 7 was installed in a particular partition.
I'm just wondering how this was accomplished. Using 'fdisk -l' will indicate... (1 Reply)
I currently have a shell script that utilizes the "Date" binary - this application is slightly different on OS X (BSD General Commmand) and Linux systems (gnu date). In particular, the version on OS X requires the following to get a date 14 days in the future "date -v+14d -u +%Y-%m-%d" where gnu... (1 Reply)
Hi
I have run the command uname -a
and i got the below output
Linux vm07 2.6.9-77.Emp #1 SMP Wed Nov 7 13:58:04 EST 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
i want know the version of Linux can i get it from above output
if yes then what is it?
is it 2.6.9-77.Emp? (2 Replies)
I want to know the distribution and version of linux that I am running:
uname -r gives me: 2.4.20-8bldsmp
uname -v gives me: #1 SMP Wed Sep 20 19:32:24 PDT 2006
Whats the distribution ?
and
whats the version ?
thanks !!! (1 Reply)
I'm looking for a generic (i.e. would be resident in most/all unix flavors) internal command for determining my OS and version. When I telnet to a box here @ work, I get none of that info and can't remember the equivalent of the DOS ver command; I know I used to know this! Thanks. (2 Replies)
Is there a trick to determine the exact version from Unix that one is working with?
I would have expected to see it after logon, but all I get are some Copyright-messages...
I know it's some HP-UX, but I would like to know the version-number
Tnx in advance!
Dave (2 Replies)