How To Find The Version of Linux You Are Using
Sometimes you need to know what version of the Operating system is installed on your server. This is extremely useful when you order a dedicated server and want to know what is the version of OS on it. A simple command will help you as usual:
cat `ls /etc/*{-,_}{release,version} 2>/dev/null | head -n 1`
This will show you something like
The picture below shows the difference between common commands: one shown above and uname -a. Sometimes you don’t need the kernel version, just the operating system name. This command should help you to do that.