Find out your distribution

Step 1

To find out your distribution, open a console and issue:

lsb_release -rd 

As an example, here is the output of SUSE Linux 11.4:

tweedleburg:~ # lsb_release -rd
Description:    openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64)
Release:        11.4

If this does not work for you you have a distribution that is not lsb-compatible. In this case you can still find out your distribution, but it gets heuristic. Follow Step 2.

Step 2

open a console and enter

cat /etc/*ele*

As an example, here is the output of SUSE Linux 11.1:

tweedleburg:~ # cat /etc/*ele*
openSUSE 11.1 (x86_64)
VERSION = 11.1
LSB_VERSION="core-2.0-noarch:core-3.2-noarch:core-2.0-x86_64:core-3.2-x86_64"
cat: /etc/lsb-release.d: Is a directory

Step 3

If step 1 and 2 did not succeed, you have a non-lsb compliant Linux distribution that probably stores its version name in a file like /etc/whatever-version or /etc/whatever-Version. So to see the name of your distribution do a

ls /etc/*ersion*

Find out your kernel

To find out your kernel, use

uname -a

Find out gcc that compiled your kernel

To find out the gcc that compiled the kernel, use

cat /proc/version

Example:

tweedleburg:~ # cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 4.5.1 20101208 [gcc-4_5-branch revision 167585] (SUSE Linux) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT 2011-07-21 02:17:24 +0200