How to let the .bashrc know the current operation system

I have several linux computers sharing one disk and one home folder.

That is on the disk, there is the home folder: \home\wuciawe

And for computer A, whose os is Centos, it will load \home\wuciawe\.bashrc

For computer B, whose os is Ubuntu, it will load \home\wuciawe\.bashrc, same with computer A.

Because I am not the Admin, I build and install some software locally on Ubuntu, and add something to the Path in \home\wuciawe\.bashrc.

Due to some reason, something added to the Path draw a contradiction with Centos.

I wonder if there is a way to let the .bashrc know the current system, do something like follows:

if os is Ubuntu:
  Path = xxx:$PATH
  export PATH
endif

宇宙人

Posted 2015-01-08T06:39:55.993

Reputation: 147

You can use the information here: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/35183/how-do-i-identify-which-linux-distro-is-running I wouldn't actually bother trying to parse these though. You should be able to simply check for the existence of files like /etc/redhat-release to determine if it is Red Hat, for example.

– krowe – 2015-01-08T06:55:24.380

1I normally have scripts which are hostname specific. e.g :

`case $HOSTNAME in pc1|pc1)`

as I cant find reliable way to find OS across all linux distros, mac + cygwin, – Neil Wightman – 2015-01-09T09:18:59.353

1@NeilWightman This method looks greater as it can specify different computers with same os. – 宇宙人 – 2015-01-09T09:48:54.170

1I normally use a combination of case $HOSTNAME and case $TERM for all the combinations I need. – Neil Wightman – 2015-01-09T09:52:52.067

Answers

Ubuntu

if grep -i Ubuntu /etc/lsb-release &>/dev/null
then
  export PATH=xxx:$PATH
fi

Notes

In shell, there is no colon at the end of an if statement.
In shell, you do not want spaces on either side of an equal sign in an assigment statement.
In shell, if statements are concluded with an fi statement

CentOS

There is an analogous solution for CentOS:

if grep -i CentOS /etc/centos-release &>/dev/null
then
  export PATH=xxx:$PATH
fi

John1024

Posted 2015-01-08T06:39:55.993

Reputation: 13 893

The release file may not reside at /etc/lsb-release. On RH-like systems it's /etc/redhat-release. – None – 2015-01-08T07:15:53.047

@CongMa Very true. If you are interested in more general solutions that handle a variety of distributions, see, for example, this post. The simple code above was intended to answer the OP's specific question about a test for Ubuntu.

– John1024 – 2015-01-08T07:44:06.880

The OP seems to want something for both CentOS and Ubuntu. In that case, it would be fine just checking both paths. – None – 2015-01-08T07:49:53.750

You could try grepping the /etc/issue file for OS names. The file's content is used by getty to display a pre-login message. From the man page of issue(5):

The file /etc/issue is a text file which contains a message or system identification to be printed before the login prompt. It may contain various @char and \char sequences, if supported by the getty-type program employed on the system.

Please see @John2014's post about how to grep it in a shell script.

user319088

Posted 2015-01-08T06:39:55.993

Reputation:

since John's answer is complete, I accept his. And as well, I vote for your answer because it's more general. – 宇宙人 – 2015-01-08T08:12:55.340

It is common advice to sysadmins, see here for example, to remove any identifying OS information from /etc/issue. So, use this approach with caution.

– John1024 – 2015-01-08T08:16:56.873