Let’s say you have just started a job where you are the sole Linux admin and the previous Linux admin can’t be reached and there is no documentation of the network anywhere. The boss knows only that his servers are running “Linux.” How do you quickly find out what Linux dist the servers are running?
The file containing the OS name and version is /etc/issue.
admin
August 13, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Good post, Matt!
If for some reason the /etc/issue file has been modified/updated, some common files to look for are:
/etc/redhat-release
/etc/SuSE-release
/etc/lsb-release
/etc/debian_version
/etc/slackware-version
If you find that one of the version or release files listed above exists, cat the file and you find the details of the distro and release.