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I have several hard drives loaded with Linux/UNIX-style operating systems. Is there some way to tell the distribution or operating system installed on the drive without booting into each individually? I thought I might be able to open each drive in a GUI as root and check their /etc/issue but that file doesn't appear to be on all of the drives.

Wolf
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  • I asked for identifying markers, not necessarily a shell script, though perhaps related – Wolf Oct 02 '16 at 19:52
  • By looking at the solution(s) of the suggested duplicate you should be able to see how the identification is made, and from that derive your distribution markers. – Chris Davies Oct 02 '16 at 21:44
  • It's one method, and I'm not unappreciative, but it isn't the only method (and thus not a duplicate of the question...) – Wolf Oct 02 '16 at 21:46
  • Since the HDD's OS is not the running OS, I think you could take the file-based methods from the listed Q. – Jeff Schaller Oct 02 '16 at 23:48

2 Answers2

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There is no common file that can be used to identify the OS/Distro version across different Linux/Unix versions. Your best bet would be to check for *-release file in /etc . Please check out the script in this link

uptime365
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If you know which distros could be on the drives, you could write a simple flowchart-style script to check package managers, default shells, and other unique configuration elements.

Aidan
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