Best way to find os name and version in Unix/Linux platform

LinuxUnixOperating SystemVersion

Linux Problem Overview

I need to find the OS name and version on Unix/Linux platform. For this I tried following:

  1. lsb_release utility

  2. /etc/redhat-release or specific file

But it does not seem to be best solution as LSB_RELEASE support is no longer for RHEL 7.

Is there any way that will work on any Unix or Linux platform?

Linux Solutions

Solution 1 - Linux

This work fine for all Linux environment.

#!/bin/sh
cat /etc/*-release

In Ubuntu:

$ cat /etc/*-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS"

or 12.04:

$ cat /etc/*-release

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="12.04.4 LTS, Precise Pangolin"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu precise (12.04.4 LTS)"
VERSION_ID="12.04"

In RHEL:

$ cat /etc/*-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.5 (Santiago)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.5 (Santiago)

Or Use this Script:

#!/bin/sh
# Detects which OS and if it is Linux then it will detect which Linux
# Distribution.

OS=`uname -s`
REV=`uname -r`
MACH=`uname -m`

GetVersionFromFile()
{
    VERSION=`cat $1 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*VERSION.*=\ // `
}

if [ "${OS}" = "SunOS" ] ; then
    OS=Solaris
    ARCH=`uname -p` 
    OSSTR="${OS} ${REV}(${ARCH} `uname -v`)"
elif [ "${OS}" = "AIX" ] ; then
    OSSTR="${OS} `oslevel` (`oslevel -r`)"
elif [ "${OS}" = "Linux" ] ; then
    KERNEL=`uname -r`
    if [ -f /etc/redhat-release ] ; then
        DIST='RedHat'
        PSUEDONAME=`cat /etc/redhat-release | sed s/.*\(// | sed s/\)//`
        REV=`cat /etc/redhat-release | sed s/.*release\ // | sed s/\ .*//`
    elif [ -f /etc/SuSE-release ] ; then
        DIST=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' '| sed s/VERSION.*//`
        REV=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*=\ //`
    elif [ -f /etc/mandrake-release ] ; then
        DIST='Mandrake'
        PSUEDONAME=`cat /etc/mandrake-release | sed s/.*\(// | sed s/\)//`
        REV=`cat /etc/mandrake-release | sed s/.*release\ // | sed s/\ .*//`
    elif [ -f /etc/debian_version ] ; then
        DIST="Debian `cat /etc/debian_version`"
        REV=""

    fi
    if [ -f /etc/UnitedLinux-release ] ; then
        DIST="${DIST}[`cat /etc/UnitedLinux-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/VERSION.*//`]"
    fi

    OSSTR="${OS} ${DIST} ${REV}(${PSUEDONAME} ${KERNEL} ${MACH})"

fi

echo ${OSSTR}

Solution 2 - Linux

Following command worked out for me nicely. It gives you the OS name and version.

lsb_release -a

Solution 3 - Linux

The "lsb_release" command provides certain Linux Standard Base and distribution-specific information. So using the below command we can get Operating system name and operating system version.

"lsb_release -a"

Solution 4 - Linux

this command gives you a description of your operating system

cat /etc/os-release

Solution 5 - Linux

In every distribute it has difference files so I write most common ones:

---- CentOS Linux distro
`cat /proc/version`
---- Debian Linux distro
`cat /etc/debian_version`
---- Redhat Linux distro
`cat /etc/redhat-release` 
---- Ubuntu Linux distro
`cat /etc/issue`   or   `cat /etc/lsb-release`

in last one /etc/issue didn't exist so I tried the second one and it returned the right answer

Solution 6 - Linux

With [tag:perl] and Linux::Distribution, the cleanest solution for an old problem :

#!/bin/sh

perl -e '
    use Linux::Distribution qw(distribution_name distribution_version);
    
    my $linux = Linux::Distribution->new;
    if(my $distro = $linux->distribution_name()) {
          my $version = $linux->distribution_version();
          print "you are running $distro";
          print " version $version" if $version;
          print "\n";
    } else {
          print "distribution unknown\n";
    }
'

Solution 7 - Linux

My own take at @kvivek's script, with more easily machine parsable output:

#!/bin/sh
# Outputs OS Name, Version & misc. info in a machine-readable way.
# See also NeoFetch for a more professional and elaborate bash script:
# https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch

SEP=","
PRINT_HEADER=false

print_help() {

	echo "`basename $0` - Outputs OS Name, Version & misc. info"
	echo "in a machine-readable way."
	echo
	echo "Usage:"
	echo "    `basename $0` [OPTIONS]"
	echo "Options:"
	echo "    -h, --help           print this help message"
	echo "    -n, --names          print a header line, naming the fields"
	echo "    -s, --separator SEP  overrides the default field-separator ('$SEP') with the supplied one"
}

# parse command-line args
while [ $# -gt 0 ]
do
	arg="$1"
	shift # past switch

	case "${arg}" in
		-h|--help)
			print_help
			exit 0
			;;
		-n|--names)
			PRINT_HEADER=true
			;;
		-s|--separator)
			SEP="$1"
			shift # past value
			;;
		*) # non-/unknown option
			echo "Unknown switch '$arg'" >&2
			print_help
			;;
	esac
done

OS=`uname -s`
DIST="N/A"
REV=`uname -r`
MACH=`uname -m`
PSUEDONAME="N/A"

GetVersionFromFile()
{
    VERSION=`cat $1 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*VERSION.*=\ // `
}

if [ "${OS}" = "SunOS" ] ; then
    DIST=Solaris
    DIST_VER=`uname -v`
    # also: cat /etc/release
elif [ "${OS}" = "AIX" ] ; then
    DIST="${OS}"
    DIST_VER=`oslevel -r`
elif [ "${OS}" = "Linux" ] ; then
    if [ -f /etc/redhat-release ] ; then
        DIST='RedHat'
        PSUEDONAME=`sed -e 's/.*\(//' -e 's/\)//' /etc/redhat-release `
        DIST_VER=`sed -e 's/.*release\ //' -e 's/\ .*//' /etc/redhat-release `
    elif [ -f /etc/SuSE-release ] ; then
        DIST=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' '| sed s/VERSION.*//`
        DIST_VER=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*=\ //`
    elif [ -f /etc/mandrake-release ] ; then
        DIST='Mandrake'
        PSUEDONAME=`sed -e 's/.*\(//' -e 's/\)//' /etc/mandrake-release`
        DIST_VER=`sed -e 's/.*release\ //' -e 's/\ .*//' /etc/mandrake-release`
    elif [ -f /etc/debian_version ] ; then
        DIST="Debian"
        DIST_VER=`cat /etc/debian_version`
	PSUEDONAME=`lsb_release -a 2> /dev/null | grep '^Codename:' | sed -e 's/.*[[:space:]]//'`
    #elif [ -f /etc/gentoo-release ] ; then
        #TODO
    #elif [ -f /etc/slackware-version ] ; then
        #TODO
    elif [ -f /etc/issue ] ; then
        # We use this indirection because /etc/issue may look like
	# "Debian GNU/Linux 10 \n \l"
        ISSUE=`cat /etc/issue`
        ISSUE=`echo -e "${ISSUE}" | head -n 1 | sed -e 's/[[:space:]]\+$//'`
        DIST=`echo -e "${ISSUE}" | sed -e 's/[[:space:]].*//'`
        DIST_VER=`echo -e "${ISSUE}" | sed -e 's/.*[[:space:]]//'`
    fi
    if [ -f /etc/UnitedLinux-release ] ; then
        DIST="${DIST}[`cat /etc/UnitedLinux-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/VERSION.*//`]"
    fi
    # NOTE `sed -e 's/.*(//' -e 's/).*//' /proc/version`
    #      is an option that worked ~ 2010 and earlier
fi

if $PRINT_HEADER
then
    echo "OS${SEP}Distribution${SEP}Distribution-Version${SEP}Pseudo-Name${SEP}Kernel-Revision${SEP}Machine-Architecture"
fi
echo "${OS}${SEP}${DIST}${SEP}${DIST_VER}${SEP}${PSUEDONAME}${SEP}${REV}${SEP}${MACH}"

NOTE: Only tested on Debian 11

Example Runs

No args
osInfo

output:

Linux,Debian,10.0,buster,4.19.0-5-amd64,x86_64
Header with names and custom separator
osInfo --names -s "\t| "

output:

OS	| Distribution	| Distribution-Version	| Pseudo-Name	| Kernel-Revision	| Machine-Architecture
Linux	| Debian	| 10.0	| buster	| 4.19.0-5-amd64	| x86_64
Filtered output
osInfo | awk -e 'BEGIN { FS=","; } { print $2 " " $3 " (" $4 ")" }'

output:

Debian 10.0 (buster)

Solution 8 - Linux

With quotes:

cat /etc/*-release | grep "PRETTY_NAME" | sed 's/PRETTY_NAME=//g'

gives output as:

"CentOS Linux 7 (Core)"

Without quotes:

cat /etc/*-release | grep "PRETTY_NAME" | sed 's/PRETTY_NAME=//g' | sed 's/"//g'

gives output as:

CentOS Linux 7 (Core)

Solution 9 - Linux

I prepared following commands to find concise information about a Linux system:

clear
echo "\n----------OS Information------------"
hostnamectl | grep "Static hostname:"
hostnamectl | tail -n 3
echo "\n----------Memory Information------------"
cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemTotal
echo "\n----------CPU Information------------"
echo -n "Number of core(s): "
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "processor" | wc -l
cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "model name" | head -n 1
echo "\n----------Disk Information------------"
echo -n "Total Size: "
df -h --total | tail -n 1| awk '{print $2}'
echo -n "Used: "
df -h --total | tail -n 1| awk '{print $3}'
echo -n "Available: "
df -h --total | tail -n 1| awk '{print $4}'
echo "\n-------------------------------------\n"

Copy and paste in an sh file like info.sh and then run it using command sh info.sh

Categories
Recommended Linux Solutions
Recommended Unix Solutions
Recommended Operating System Solutions
Recommended Version Solutions

Previous Solution:

Easier DynamoDB local testing

JavaUnit TestingJunitAmazon Dynamodb

Next Solution:

When switch fragment with SwipeRefreshLayout during refreshing, fragment freezes but actually still work

AndroidAndroid FragmentsAndroid RecyclerviewSwiperefreshlayout

Attributions

All content for this solution is sourced from the original question on Stackoverflow.

The content on this page is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
QuestionNirajView Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - LinuxkvivekView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - LinuxDu-LacosteView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - LinuxNivetha JaishankarView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - LinuxYakovGdl35View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - LinuxMary JalalianView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - LinuxGilles QuenotView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - LinuxhoijuiView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - LinuxSaurabh NemadeView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - LinuxMRazianView Answer on Stackoverflow