Re: uname distro?

Hi Robin,

> Is there a uname-like command to tell what distro a machine is running?

uname -o can do this, but you generally get more information when you 
log in with ssh, eg on this machine you see:


Linux ip39 2.6.13-1-multimedia-amd64-generic #1 Fri Sep 9 09:47:54 CEST 
2005 x86 _64 GNU/Linux

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free 
software; the exact distribution terms for each program are described in 
the individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.


That doesn't leave you in much doubt :-)

> How do folks managing a group of machines with different 
> distros/versions keep it straight what's where?

There is the Levanta appliance for this task; it supports Red Hat, SuSE, 
Fedora, AsianUX, and CentOS, but it doesn't support Debian:

http://www.levanta.com/

I guess the Debian solution is to use apt-get to keep all your machines 
up to date, all the time. That just leaves the problem of configuration 
change management, but it is possible to manage configurations with 
Subversion so you can commit changes, roll back from mistakes etc.

Cheers!

Daniel



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