Understanding uname output

unix uname
septerr picture septerr · Aug 4, 2011 · Viewed 23.2k times · Source

What do the various pieces of uname -a output mean? Following is an example output:

Linux mymachine 2.6.18-194.e15PAE #1 SMP Fri Apr 2 15:37:44 EDT 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

I gather that Linux is the O.S, 2.6.18-194.e15PAE is the kernel version. What do the rest of the pieces mean?

Appreciate your help.

Answer

user149341 picture user149341 · Aug 4, 2011

In order, the fields are:

  • "Linux": The machine's kernel name (e.g, OS).
  • "mymachine": The machine's node name (e.g, hostname).
  • "2.6.18-194.e15PAE": The kernel version
  • "#1 SMP Fri Apr 2 15:37:44 EDT 2010": The kernel version and build time.
  • "i686 i686": The processor type and hardware platform.
  • "i386": The architecture of the processor. (This and the two above basically all mean the same thing on most systems. They typically only differ on certain embedded platforms.)
  • "GNU/Linux": The operating system name.

For comparison, the uname -a from my Mac reads:

  • "Darwin" (hardware name)
  • "mymachine"
  • "Darwin Kernel Version 11.0.0" (version)
  • "Sat Jun 18 12:56:35 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1699.22.73~1/RELEASE_X86_64" (build time)
  • "x86_64" (processor architecture)
  • (The operating system name is omitted by the OS X version of uname for some reason, as are a few other fields.)

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