How Can I find What Distro Is Running?

[Superman859]

I am a beginner linux user and have a linux box. It did not have yum or apt or anything useful installed, so I am trying to install one or the other to make life easier with dependencies.

However, I'm not sure which distribution is running on the machine and am not sure the easiest way to look it up.

uname just says 'Linux'
uname -r is '2.6.9-023stab044.4-enterprise'

Anyways, I just am not sure how to figure it out.

[khafa]

hi,

you can check it as follows

cat /proc/version

[HROAdmin26]

Look for a file with "release" or "version" in the name under /etc - hopefully there is one.

[khafa]

Look for a file with "release" or "version" in the name under /etc - hopefully there is one.

/proc/version does not depend on distros i think.

[devils casper]

I agree with HROAdmin26. Execute this

cat /etc/*release*
cat /etc/*version*

[khafa]

I agree with HROAdmin26. Execute this

cat /etc/*release*

can you explain.
because using /proc/version works on my Debian system while there is no file of the name /etc/*release* on the same system.

[devils casper]

Oops ! My mistake. I forgot to add command for version. I have edited my last post.
Debian is the only distro which doesn't have release file. It has /etc/debian-version file.

[khafa]

Oops ! My mistake. I forgot to add command for version. I have edited my last post.
Debian is the only distro which doesn't have release file. It has /etc/debian-version file.

and is there any distro that does not provide /proc/version?
because i dont see why you guys avoid this one

[devils casper]

and is there any distro that does not provide /proc/version?
because i dont see why you guys avoid this one

/proc/version tell you about the version of GCC which used for the kernel compilation. It doesn't necessarily tell which distro/version the host is running.

casper@devils-den : $ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.20-16-generic (root@terranova)
(gcc version 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)) #2 SMP Tue Feb 12 05:41:34 UTC 2008

This doesn't mean that I am running Ubuntu 4.1.2.

If you mount / partition in LiveCD, there wont be any /proc/version. Its available after system boot up only.

[HROAdmin26]

The more info, the better. Use 'em both to make a best guess, but as Casper mentioned, strictly using /proc/version won't give you the whole picture.

For example, /proc/version on a machine may show "SUSE Linux," but that doesn't tell me specifics. That *plus* /etc/SuSE-release shows me openSuSE 10.3.

cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.22.5-31-bigsmp (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 4.2.1 (SUSE Linux)) #1 SMP 2007/09/21 22:29:00 UTC

cat /etc/SuSE-release
openSUSE 10.3 (i586)
VERSION = 10.3