Question 26654 in CentOS Question posted in
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How to detect OS system using BASH? – CentOS

The script should be able to detect the operating system that is running.
The alternatives OS is Arch Linux, Centos and Ubuntu.

os=$(uname) 
if [ "$os" == "Arch" ]; then   
  echo "Arch Linux detected" 
elif [ "$os" == "CentOS" ]; then   
  echo "CentOS detected" 
elif [ "$os" == "Ubuntu" ]; then   
  echo "Ubuntu detected" 
else   
  echo "Unknown OS detected"
fi```

Output: Unknown OS detected


I tried doing this:

`del1()

{
os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep "PRETTY_NAME")
}
del1

echo "The operating system is: $os"`

The output: PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS"

But I want to check between Centos, Arch Linux and Ubuntu.

Any suggestions?
Tags:

3

Answers


  1. 0

    You can use the grep command to filter the output of the cat /etc/os-release command for specific strings that indicate the operating system.
    For example, you could use the following command to check for Ubuntu:

    os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -o "Ubuntu")

    You could then use an if statement to check if the variable os equals to Ubuntu:

    if [ "$os" == "Ubuntu" ]; then   
  echo "Ubuntu detected" 
else   
  echo "Not Ubuntu detected"
fi

    You can do the same to check for Arch Linux:

    os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -o "Arch")

    And for Centos:

    os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -o "CentOS")

    You can also use cat /etc/*-release instead of cat /etc/os-release for more general detection of the OS.

    You can also use lsb_release -a command to get more details about the distribution and version of the OS.

    os=$(lsb_release -a | grep -o "Ubuntu")

    You can then create a function that check for each os one by one and print the output accordingly.

    check_os(){
os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -o "Ubuntu")
if [ "$os" == "Ubuntu" ]; then   
  echo "Ubuntu detected" 
else
  os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -o "Arch")
  if [ "$os" == "Arch" ]; then   
    echo "Arch Linux detected" 
  else
    os=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep -o "CentOS")
    if [ "$os" == "CentOS" ]; then   
      echo "CentOS detected" 
    else   
      echo "Unknown OS detected"
    fi
  fi
fi
}
check_os

    Please note that this approach might not be 100% accurate and it is better to use the appropriate package manager commands to check the OS version and distribution.

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  2. 0

    The uname command will always return Linux when running on Linux, so of course that’s never going to work.

    Using /etc/os-release is probably the best solution, but don’t grep it for information; the file is a collection of shell variables that you can source with the . command, so you can write something like this:

    #!/bin/sh

. /etc/os-release

case $ID in
  ubuntu) echo "This is Ubuntu!"
    ;;

  arch) echo "This is Arch Linux!"
    ;;

  centos) echo "This is CentOS!"
    ;;

  *) echo "This is an unknown distribution."
      ;;
esac
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  3. 0

    If you just need to check the name of the OS, you can try;

    source /etc/os-release
echo "The operating system is: $NAME"
    Login or Signup to reply.
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