[Solved?] CLI what command tells which linux one are in?

[nooby]

Can not be directly solved but one can tell each version by adding a description that get saved when one shut down.

original text

Very embarrassing despite it only takes from 30 seconds to at most 60 seconds or so when the linux is up I have forgotten which one I was booting.

Would be cool to know how to know what one are in.

Back in DOS days one wrote ver for version and it told which DOS version?

Don't Linux has something similar?

[DMcCunney]

Would be cool to know how to know what one are in.

Back in DOS days one wrote ver for version and it told which DOS version?

Don't Linux has something similar?

Do a Google search on "uname".
______
Dennis

[nooby]

thanks Dennis!

Had no idea that Linux was that compatible with Unix.

uname (short for unix name) is a software program in Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that prints the name, version and other details about the ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uname

One could try
uname -a

but that only say Puppypc kernel 2.6.30.5 but not the name that the developer have given it.

could you help my out please

[Minimatter]

Maybe what you are looking for is

cat /etc/puppyversion

or

cat /etc/issue

[ajlec2000]

The help icon brings up the html viewer with the version number in Puppy 4.3.1. Haven't tried it on any other version.

[DMcCunney]

thanks Dennis!

Had no idea that Linux was that compatible with Unix.

For things like that, it will be. Remember, Linus Torvalds began developing the Linux kernel (based on Minix) because he wanted a Unix system to play with, and didn't have the $80,000 or so an AT&T Unix source license cost back then. The utilities and tools that are supplied with Linux are all from the Gnu project, who were trying to make a freely available OS that looked and acted like Unix, and most of the CLI tools are reverse engineered copies of Unix originals. (The Gnu developers also fixed bugs, added extensions, and regularized syntax in the process. Most of the original Unix CLI commands were written by developers at Bell Laboratories to solve particular problems they had, and there was no real standardization in naming conventions or command line options. It's nice, for example, that in a Gnu utility, <command> -h or --help normally produces a usage message, and -V or --version tends to return version information.)

Linux looks a lot like Unix because it's designed to do so.

But lots of things can look like Unix. AT&T spun off the Unix development effort as Unix system Laboratories, and later sold USL to the SCO origanization, but they gave the Unix trademark to the Open Group. The Open Group published a set of 1170 specifications (called Spec 1170) defining what Unix was, and any OS that met those specs could call itself Unix, regardless of how it originated. I believe there was at least one Linux distribution that spent the money and took the trouble to craft the distro so it met Spec 1170 and could legitimately call itself Unix. It no longer exists, so being able to put Unix on the label didn't help it.

One could try
uname -a

but that only say Puppypc kernel 2.6.30.5 but not the name that the developer have given it.

could you help my out please

I don't understand what you are asking for. What name are you looking for? The Linux kernel is based on common source code, and any Linux distribution using that release of the source will have largely the same kernel. If I have more than one Linux distribution installed on a PC, my question will be "Which one am I in at the moment?" If I'm in something like a full screen CLI window, that may not be obvious. (Though I normally embed that info in my shell prompt.)

Booted to Ubuntu, "uname -a" returns

Code: Select all

Linux Varda 2.6.31-.19-generic #56-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 28 01:26:53 UTC 2010 1586 Gnu/Linux

Booted to Puppy, I see what you saw.

What are you looking for if that's not it? You have multiple Puppies and you don't know which you're in?
______
Dennis

[nooby]

I am an old retired man and most likely my brain show early symptomes of dementia or something. I forget things very fast.

Just now I am in NOP and did happen to remember this but last night I was in Puppy Linux 431 Standard but thought me had started up something else.

None of the suggestions does tell which name the developer gave his or her derivative.

apart from the Shell which I have had not way of testing because I have not done it before and don't know what you are referring to?

You mean me write shell -h in terminal?
would that not be a kind of reboot from xorg or jwm restart or something?

Back in the days of DOS we had Shell too but don't remember what it was.

edit, now I get what you mean by Shell prompt.
you refer to when one are in CLI then the text left of the cursor is the shell prompt?

Here is an annoying feature of Opera in NOP

If you already have answered something like me now and want to make a new comment then it don't allow you. Protecting you from making a double post. Hahah, they are clever at Opera. They send me to forum index if I click on the reply button.

Puppy 431 NOP terminal prompt says it is sh-3.00 which is not much helpful either.

[alienjeff]

An alternative approach would be to graphically edit your desktop wallpaper for each version of Puppy you have installed.

For instance, simply paste "4.3.1" or "NOP" on your desktop wallpaper with mtPaint.

Another way would be to relabel your desktop tray's Menu button from "Menu" to "4.3.1" - just a thought.

[DMcCunney]

Just now I am in NOP and did happen to remember this but last night I was in Puppy Linux 431 Standard but thought me had started up something else.

None of the suggestions does tell which name the developer gave his or her derivative.

So you don't want to know which Linux distro you are in, you want to know which Puppy derivative you are using. You should have said that in the first place.

Offhand, I don't know a command that tells you that. I don't believe there is a standard place to record that info or a standard way to look at it. It's on you to remember which one you are in.

apart from the Shell which I have had not way of testing because I have not done it before and don't know what you are referring to?

You mean me write shell -h in terminal?
would that not be a kind of reboot from xorg or jwm restart or something?

Nope.

When you open a terminal window, using rxvt or whatever, the program you are talking to in the window is the shell. By default in Puppy, the shell is the bash shell that is standard with Linux, though others are available. (I found Puppy versions of tcsh and zsh, and there are others in existance.)

By default, bash prints a # as the prompt to let you know it is waiting for a command. The # prompts indicates you are running as the root user, which is Puppy's default. On other systems where you do not run as root by default, the standard prompt is $.

But you can customize that to display a lot of other information, including things like the name of the particular Puppy variant you are running.

Back in the days of DOS we had Shell too but don't remember what it was.

By default, your shell was COMMAND.COM, but you could change that by altering the SHELL= line in your CONFIG.SYS file. I used to run a command.com replacement called 4DOS, and had CONFIG.SYS point to it.

edit, now I get what you mean by Shell prompt.
you refer to when one are in CLI then the text left of the cursor is the shell prompt?

Correct.

Here is an annoying feature of Opera in NOP

If you already have answered something like me now and want to make a new comment then it don't allow you. Protecting you from making a double post. Hahah, they are clever at Opera. They send me to forum index if I click on the reply button.

I use Opera a bit and have not seen that particular feature. It sounds like it won't let you post again that quickly. Try waiting a bit before you reply again to the same post.

Puppy 431 NOP terminal prompt says it is sh-3.00 which is not much helpful either.

No, that just tells you which version of bash you're talking to. You would need to modify your bash profile to alter the prompt and include the info you want.
______
Dennis

[nooby]

Jeff, very good suggestion seen from perspective. I even got inspired to do an easier thing. Faster to do for newbies like me.
Saving a text file on the Desktop that says the name.

Dennis, instead of changing anything in Shell maybe it is less problematic to open the background Desktop picture in paint and write the name there?

Or even less intrusive would be to put a small text file on the desktop that says the name of each puppy.

I now have installed these puppies

puppy431 std
puppy 44 Alpha test version
Puppy431NOP
PupStardust
Browserpup
LnxPup (which seems to be Browserpup with Skype and something more added.
Choicepup

and the following that I will put on backburners due to all of these below this text seems not compatible with my NVidia or AMD64Bit processor or one need to download and tweek and mess around and me have spent many hours on it and failed. Those above just works those below are different.

Dpup delay in video rendering that is horrible.
Upup delay in video rendering that is horrible.
FatDog delay that is too much but maybe acceptable
TeenPup Mini was good but was missing something
Pulp too technical for my poor brain
Turbopup No runtime for Mp4 and I don't know how to set it up
Boxpup Fail to download here maybe work better next time
Puppeee is only made for Netbooks and not my Desktop.