How to discover what Linux distribution is in use

Question

Sometimes I need to access some servers running Linux (or maybe another Unix-like SO), but I don\'t know how to verify which distribution is in use on the server (there are

Answer 1

You should ask yourself if you really need to know which distro is in use (perhaps because you want to build a package specific for this distribution). In many other cases it is a far better idea, to just test and see if the features you need are there or not. This might look like a lot more work because you have to test every feature one by one but this way, your software becomes far more flexible.