Table of Contents

Which Linux Distribution am I Running?

The example output comes from an Ubuntu 7.10 desktop.

From boot-time messages

dmesg|head -1
[    0.000000] Linux version 2.6.22-14-generic (buildd@terranova) (gcc
version 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)) #1 SMP Tue
Dec 18 08:02:57 UTC 2007 (Ubuntu 2.6.22-14.47-generic)

From /proc/version

cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.22-14-generic (buildd@terranova) (gcc version 4.1.3
20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)) #1 SMP Tue Dec 18
08:02:57 UTC 2007

From /etc/issue

cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 7.10 \n \l

Look for 'release' and 'version' in /etc

ls /etc/*-release /etc/*-version /etc/*_release /etc/*_version
/etc/debian_version  /etc/lsb-release
cat /etc/debian_version
lenny/sid
cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=7.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=gutsy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 7.10"

uname command

uname -a
Linux kidwellb-ubuntu 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Dec 18 08:02:57 UTC
2007 i686 GNU/Linux