HOWTO: Get Even More System Information!

I’ve already written about using the uname -r command to get kernel version information, but there’s a few other neato little commands that you can use at the terminal window.

Note: the ticks around the uname commands are the backticks on the key (typically located beside the 1 key on a US keyboard). They are not the normal single quote marks.

echo uname -o will just display the OS name like so:

GNU/Linux

Using -a instead of -o will display the kernel name, hostname, kernel version, kernel compilation date, and OS name like so:

Linux jonzbox 2.6.10 #1 Wed Mar 2 22:37:07 PST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

cat /etc/*-version will return a plethora of information like so:

OS: Linspire
Version: 5.0.59
Date: 20050315-1613
OS: Linspire
Version: 5.0.59
Date: 20050315-1613

There are also rumours that cat/etc/*-release will display information as well, but that doesn’t function on my system.