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When using an unfamiliar Linux/BSD/Unix computer (e.g. by SSH) from the command line, how can you tell what distribution (and what version of that distribution) you're using?
Some options I've tried:
lsb_release --all
: doesn't exist on OpenSuSE 11.3; works on Debian squeeze and Ubuntu 10.10.uname --all
: doesn't give distro information on SuSE and Debian; works in Ubuntu.cat /etc/apt/sources.list
in you can see which distribution's servers the machine connects to for updates. Obviously, only works for Debian-based distributions. Won't work if the computer has been configured to use a custom repository server.
Unfortunately none of these seem to work across many distributions. Is there a simple command to check?
3There are many unixes that don't support the /proc pseudo-filesystem. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten – 2011-10-19T16:08:12.547