Intro To 'uname' Command In Linux

2023-05-10 - By Robert Elder

     I use the 'uname' command as a quick way to see information about my operating system:

uname

     and the output is:

Linux

     Typically, I run the uname command with the '-a' flag to show all of the system information that this command can provide:

uname -a

     and the output is:

Linux robert-ThinkPad-P15v-Gen-1 5.15.0-60-generic #66~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 25 09:41:30 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

     The uname command supports various flags to show certain fields individually, such as the kernel release version and the hardware platform:

uname --kernel-name
uname --nodename
uname --kernel-release
uname --kernel-version
uname --machine
uname --processor
uname --hardware-platform
uname --operating-system

     the output from running all of the commands above is:

Linux
robert-ThinkPad-P15v-Gen-1
5.15.0-60-generic
#66~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 25 09:41:30 UTC 2023
x86_64
x86_64
x86_64
GNU/Linux

     This ability to print individual fields could be useful for scripting purposes.  Here, I have an example of a script called 'do_install.sh' that verifies the hardware platform before attempting to start an install process that only works on the 'x86_64' platform:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$(uname --machine)" == "x86_64" ]
then
        echo "arch was x86_64"
        echo "... Run x86_64 install commands..."
else
        echo "arch was something else, install cannot continue."
fi

     If I try to run the above script on a platform where the machine name is 'x86_64' the output will be the following:

arch was x86_64
... Run x86_64 install commands...

     but if the machine name has some other value (such as 'i386'), the output will be the following:

arch was something else, install cannot continue.

     And that's why the 'uname' command is my favourite Linux command.