In this hands-on lab, we will determine the Linux distribution that is running on the lab host. As a System Administrator, it’s not uncommon to log into an unfamiliar system to perform troubleshooting and other tasks, and this lab gives us a chance to practice discovering details about the operating system.
Learning Objectives
Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:
- View the Release Files
- We can view the release files by using globbing to pick up every file that contains the word "release" in the
/etc/
directory.cat /etc/*release*
- We can view the release files by using globbing to pick up every file that contains the word "release" in the
- View the Issue Files
- We can view the issue files by using globbing to pick up every file that contains the word "issue" in the
/etc/
directory.cat /etc/*issue*
- We can view the issue files by using globbing to pick up every file that contains the word "issue" in the
- Run a Utility to Determine the Linux Distribution
- We can use a couple of utilities to determine the distribution. We can either use
lsb_release -a
, or for systemd-based systems, we can usehostnamectl
.
- We can use a couple of utilities to determine the distribution. We can either use