[Solved] Differentiate between various Linux distros

[petevick]

At the moment in my project I differentiate between Linux and Windows by this code....

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. { TForm1 }
2. function OSVersion: String;
3. begin
4.   {$IFDEF Linux}
5.   OSVersion := 'Linux';
6.   {$ELSE}
7.   {$IFDEF WINDOWS}
8.   OSVersion := 'Windows';
9.   {$ENDIF}
10.   {$ENDIF}
11. end;
12.  

...but is there a way to differentiate between other Linux/Ubuntu distros, say Linux Mint and Kubuntu.

[petevick]

Hmmm, maybe I just expand on what I have, something like.....

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. { TForm1 }
2. function OSVersion: String;
3. begin
4.   {$IFDEF Linux}
5.   OSVersion := 'Linux';
6.   {$ELSE}
7.   {$IFDEF Ubuntu}
8.   OSVersion := 'Ubuntu';
9.   {$ELSE}
10.   {$IFDEF WINDOWS}
11.   OSVersion := 'Windows';
12.   {$ENDIF}
13.   {$ENDIF}
14.   {$ENDIF}
15. end;

[petevick]

Nope, that doesn't work 

[Lutz Mändle]

Have a look at /etc/os-release, there is also a man page (man os-release).

[howardpc]

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. uses
2.   FileUtil;
3.  
4. function GetLinuxDistro: String;
5. const
6.   Issue = '/etc/issue';
7. begin
8.   case FileExists(Issue) of
9.     True:  Result := ReadFileToString(Issue);
10.     False: Result := 'unknown distro';
11.   end;
12. end;

       

[petevick]

Have a look at /etc/os-release, there is also a man page (man os-release).

Thanks for this Lutz, but I think the solution from howardpc will be a tad more straight forward as 'issue' is just a one line text file.

[petevick]

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. uses
2.   FileUtil;
3.  
4. function GetLinuxDistro: String;
5. const
6.   Issue = '/etc/issue';
7. begin
8.   case FileExists(Issue) of
9.     True:  Result := ReadFileToString(Issue);
10.     False: Result := 'unknown distro';
11.   end;
12. end;

     

Thanks for this, It should work for me.

[Kays]

Have a look at /etc/os-release, there is also a man page (man os-release).

Right. Everything’s runnin’ on systemd nowadays.

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1.   OSVersion := 'systemd';

[MarkMLl]

Have a look at /etc/os-release, there is also a man page (man os-release).

Thanks for this Lutz, but I think the solution from howardpc will be a tad more straight forward as 'issue' is just a one line text file.

I believe /etc/os-release is the nearest thing you'll get to a correct answer since this is officially sanctioned by both linux.org and freedesktop.org: hence you will also find it supported by Solaris etc., with standardised content.

Anything using conditional compilation is doomed to failure, since all you're doing is asking the build environment what it thinks it's compiling for. So as a specific example, you might be building a 32-bit Linux program with no GUI which is going to be run on a 64-bit distro with KDE.

Conditionals do have their uses, but what you're trying to do isn't one of them :-)

MarkMLl

[winni]

Have a look at /etc/os-release, there is also a man page (man os-release).

Right. Everything’s runnin’ on systemd nowadays.

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1.   OSVersion := 'systemd';

Hi!

This is not correct.

There is a hardcore crew that is angry about systemd.

Have a look at

https://nosystemd.org/

Winni

[Gustavo 'Gus' Carreno]

Hey Y'all,

This actually made me curious of how many ways we can assess this and I've added another app to my Test* collection of apps: Test Linux Distribution Information

Of course I went all overboard and it even has i18n with one language: Portuguese.

Hope it's useful for anyone.

TODO:

• Get the information via the lsb_release CLI command
• Find if these 4/5 methods are really the whole shibang or if there are others.

Cheers,
Gus

[Thaddy]

This is not correct.

There is a hardcore crew that is angry about systemd.

Fake news? For sure. There is a very valid reason everybody is using systemd: it works better than the old alternatives.

[friend]

Fake news? For sure. There is a very valid reason everybody is using systemd: it works better than the old alternatives.

You don't know what you're talking about. This cannot even be called "news" -- now the association is unsurprising for someone whose profile picture is a flag of Ukraine and recently called the President of the Russian Federation a criminal in his signature. You seem to like talking about what you don't know.
I bet you haven't even read about the reasons why systemd is criticized.

[winni]

This is not correct.

There is a hardcore crew that is angry about systemd.

Fake news? For sure. There is a very valid reason everybody is using systemd: it works better than the old alternatives.

Don't call everything you're not informed about "fake news".

Some former Debian Developers issued an non-systemd Debian called Devuan:

https://www.devuan.org/

A (not complete) list of Linux distros without systemd:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd

Winni

[marcov]

Some people are also still maintaining Minix. That doesn't mean Linux is irrelevant, but also not that all Linux code should still work with Minix.