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 can use 'uname':

[anton@localhost ~]$ uname -a
Linux localhost 2.6.26-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 26 21:15:43 UTC 2008 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux