How To Know Which Linux Distribution You Are Using?

Here are a few ways to find out which Linux distro you are using :

• From the Boot Time messages
  Fire up your favorite terminal program and type in the following
  

  dmesg | head -1

  
  The output would be similar to:
  

  Linux version 4.9.0-5-amd64 ([email protected]) (gcc version 6.3.0 20170516 (Debian 6.3.0-18) ) #1 SMP Debian 4.9.65-3+deb9u2 (2018-01-04)

• Using /proc/version
  In the terminal type
  

  cat /proc/version

  
  The output would be like:

  Linux version 4.9.0-5-amd64 ([email protected]) (gcc version 6.3.0 20170516 (Debian 6.3.0-18) ) #1 SMP Debian 4.9.65-3+deb9u2 (2018-01-04)

• Using /etc/issue
  This method gives the most appropriate answer on older Linux Distributions.
  

  cat /etc/issue

  
  The output should be like:
  

  Debian GNU/Linux 9 \n \l

• Using /etc/os-release
  This method works best on modern Linux distributions.
  

  cat /etc/os-release

  
  The output should be like:
  

  PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
  NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
  VERSION_ID="9"
  VERSION="9 (stretch)"
  ID=debian
  HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
  SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
  BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

The original source is here