Subject: Re: bug#7003: Serial Number of Linux Operating System

From: Bob Proulx <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2010 02:41:18 -0600

Sudarshan N C. wrote:
>                 "This is not relevant to any bug with any of the
> commands but  just  a clarification"

In the future it would be better to send these types of questions to
the coreutils discussion list instead of to bug-coreutils, since it
isn't a bug and that way it won't open a bug in the defect tracker.
Since this isn't a bug I am going to close it.

>                 I'm an amateur to the linux environment. I have been
> trying some days to find the serial number of linux operating system in
> a generic way(applicable to most of the distros). But I could not.

In the GNU/Linux environment there really isn't a serial number
available.  What you are asking for isn't possible.

> Also let me know the difference between the version and release of a
> kernel. Uname -r gives me the release of the kernel and uname -v gives
> the version which I find actually as a date and time information - does
> it mean the build time of the kernel.

Yes.  You are correct.  But different vendors put different
information in there.  IBM AIX puts major release (4) and minor
release (3) for 4.3 for example.  There isn't a standard for it.

> Then what does cat /etc/*release file convey?  I mean I want to what
> a version exactly mean and is it same as 5.4?

That is a vendor specific file with vendor specific information.
Every vendor puts different things in there.  It is intended to
indicate the operating system version.  But the format of the
information varies from vendor to vendor.

Bob