Re: OT: How to determine which distro(Debian,RH, etc)?
*- On 28 Aug, Shao Zhang wrote about "Re: OT: How to determine which distro(Debian,RH, etc)?"
> How about telnet to localhost??
>
> Trying 127.0.0.1...
> Connected to localhost.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 localhost
>
Not everyone has the telnet service open and the prompt is subject to
the contents of /etc/issue.net which is configurable by the sysadmin.
After various responses I have come to the conclusion that the
FHS should specify a file which gives details of the OS
installed. Something along the lines of /etc/release should be
available which gives at the minumum the OS name and release number and
any copyrights if appropriate. This is what Solaris does, as an example
from a Solaris machine the /etc/release has the following.
Solaris 2.6 s297s_smccServer_37cshwp SPARC
Copyright 1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Manufactured in the USA 18 July 1997
It is simple and easy to parse and can be a real plus for commercial
products that need to know which os is running for whatever reason.
Anybody know how to contact the FHS folks and send a comment/suggestion?
> Brian Servis [servis@purdue.edu] wrote:
>>
>> What is the best way to determine which distribution of Linux a machine
>> is running?
>>
>> I know that Debian has a file /etc/debian_version which is part of the
>> base-files package so that should be present on all Debian machines.
>> What do other dists have that is a sure way of knowing what dist is set
>> up on the machine?
>>
--
Brian
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Mechanical Engineering servis@purdue.edu
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