On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 23:38, Austin English<austinenglish@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> uname is portable, and should work everywhere. What's *not* portable,
> is, e.g., grepping uname for answers, e.g.,:
> `uname -a` | grep Linux
> Yes, I've seen this done. But what happens if you're on a *BSD box
> with the hostname 'Linux_sucks'.
>
> I meant if you want to do OS specific code paths, use uname -s.
I'll try to avoid it in this script....
lsb_release is one of those handy programs that is never installed on
a box when you need it...
>> (I *know* it works under bash on Solaris, I usually don't bother with
>> plain Bourne...)
>
> Right. I'm not sure where it doesn't work (I'm told Solaris, but
> haven't tested). But never hurts to be safe.
Normal Bourne is full of #$^#, and every vendor's version seem to have
its own quirks... And some replace it with another mostly-compatible
shell, like HP-UX's POSIX shell.
>
>> Somethings that would be nice to add (preferably with a proper option parser):
>> Graphics card model / driver detection (Portability might be hard....)
>
> Not sure how easy that is, tbh.
Hmm...
Even a
card=`lspci | grep 'VGA ' 2> /dev/null`
card=${card:-Unknown}
might be better than nothing... (But it is UGLY and would probably
only work on Linux (that's what the /dev/null is for...))
>> State of common problematic processes, such as pulseaudio / compiz
>
> Yes, good idea. Preferably with a warning/error if they're enabled.
>
I don't like grepping ps output though... There must be a better way to check...
>> Logged in user (`id` should work..)
>
> `id` gives a lot more info, e.g., groups a user is in. `whoami` would
> be better. Or $USER.
>
whoami doesn't work on Solaris. "who am i" does work though. id with
certain parameters can emulate whoami. (see "whoami --help")
I thought the group info might be useful for troubleshooting...
>> (I should probably test it on my MacBook and the OpenSolaris box that
>> I'm planning to install soon...)
>
> Good good.
The MacBook is still on Tiger and the OpenSolaris box would be at
work, which should mean occasional testing, rather than a full test
before each release.
