How to find out which Linux distribution I'm running

To Know Linux Distribution that's running

The /etc directory contains a file lsb-release which has information about the exact distribution that's running.

Simply do a cat of this file and it should give you the details..

For e.g.,

sgoswami@ubuntu:/etc$ cat lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"sgoswami@ubuntu:/etc$

To find out the Kernal version etc do a uname:

sgoswami@ubuntu:/etc$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:04:26 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linuxsgoswami@ubuntu:/etc$
The above tells you that the kernal version is 2.6.31.

Also try cat /proc/version:-

sgoswami@ubuntu:/etc$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.31-14-generic (buildd@rothera) (gcc version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-4ubuntu8) ) #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:04:26 UTC 2009sgoswami@ubuntu:/etc$