Python: What OS am I running on?
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8907892
-
17-04-2021 - |
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What do I need to look at to see whether I'm on Windows or Unix, etc?
Solution
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'posix'
>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Linux'
>>> platform.release()
'2.6.22-15-generic'
The output of platform.system() is as follows:
- Linux:
Linux - Mac:
Darwin - Windows:
Windows
See: platform — Access to underlying platform’s identifying data
OTHER TIPS
Dang -- lbrandy beat me to the punch, but that doesn't mean I can't provide you with the system results for Vista!
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'nt'
>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Windows'
>>> platform.release()
'Vista'
...and I can’t believe no one’s posted one for Windows 10 yet:
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'nt'
>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Windows'
>>> platform.release()
'10'
For the record here's the results on Mac:
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'posix'
>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Darwin'
>>> platform.release()
'8.11.1'
Sample code to differentiate OS's using python:
from sys import platform as _platform
if _platform == "linux" or _platform == "linux2":
# linux
elif _platform == "darwin":
# MAC OS X
elif _platform == "win32":
# Windows
elif _platform == "win64":
# Windows 64-bit
Short Story
Use platform.system(). It returns Windows, Linux or Darwin (for OSX).
Long Story
There are 3 ways to get OS in Python, each with its own pro and cons:
Method 1
>>> import sys
>>> sys.platform
'win32' # could be 'linux', 'linux2, 'darwin', 'freebsd8' etc
How this works (source): Internally it calls OS APIs to get name of the OS as defined by OS. See here for various OS-specific values.
Pro: No magic, low level.
Con: OS version dependent, so best not to use directly.
Method 2
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'nt' # for Linux and Mac it prints 'posix'
How this works (source): Internally it checks if python has OS-specific modules called posix or nt.
Pro: Simple to check if posix OS
Con: no differentiation between Linux or OSX.
Method 3
>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Windows' # for Linux it prints 'Linux', Mac it prints `'Darwin'
How this works (source): Internally it will eventually call internal OS APIs, get OS version-specific name like 'win32' or 'win16' or 'linux1' and then normalize to more generic names like 'Windows' or 'Linux' or 'Darwin' by applying several heuristics.
Pro: Best portable way for Windows, OSX and Linux.
Con: Python folks must keep normalization heuristic up to date.
Summary
- If you want to check if OS is Windows or Linux or OSX then the most reliable way is
platform.system(). - If you want to make OS-specific calls but via built-in Python modules
posixorntthen useos.name. - If you want to get raw OS name as supplied by OS itself then use
sys.platform.
You can also use sys.platform if you already have imported sys and you don't want to import another module
>>> import sys
>>> sys.platform
'linux2'
If you want user readable data but still detailed, you can use platform.platform()
>>> import platform
>>> platform.platform()
'Linux-3.3.0-8.fc16.x86_64-x86_64-with-fedora-16-Verne'
Here's a few different possible calls you can make to identify where you are
import platform
import sys
def linux_distribution():
try:
return platform.linux_distribution()
except:
return "N/A"
print("""Python version: %s
dist: %s
linux_distribution: %s
system: %s
machine: %s
platform: %s
uname: %s
version: %s
mac_ver: %s
""" % (
sys.version.split('\n'),
str(platform.dist()),
linux_distribution(),
platform.system(),
platform.machine(),
platform.platform(),
platform.uname(),
platform.version(),
platform.mac_ver(),
))
The outputs of this script ran on a few different systems (Linux, Windows, Solaris, MacOS) and architectures (x86, x64, Itanium, power pc, sparc) is available here: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/OS_flavor_name_version
Ubuntu 12.04 server for example gives:
Python version: ['2.6.5 (r265:79063, Oct 1 2012, 22:04:36) ', '[GCC 4.4.3]']
dist: ('Ubuntu', '10.04', 'lucid')
linux_distribution: ('Ubuntu', '10.04', 'lucid')
system: Linux
machine: x86_64
platform: Linux-2.6.32-32-server-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-10.04-lucid
uname: ('Linux', 'xxx', '2.6.32-32-server', '#62-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 20 22:07:43 UTC 2011', 'x86_64', '')
version: #62-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 20 22:07:43 UTC 2011
mac_ver: ('', ('', '', ''), '')
I started a bit more systematic listing of what values you can expect using the various modules (feel free to edit and add your system):
Linux (64bit) + WSL
os.name posix
sys.platform linux
platform.system() Linux
sysconfig.get_platform() linux-x86_64
platform.machine() x86_64
platform.architecture() ('64bit', '')
- tried with archlinux and mint, got same results
- on python2
sys.platformis suffixed by kernel version, e.g.linux2, everything else stays identical - same output on Windows Subsystem for Linux (tried with ubuntu 18.04 LTS), except
platform.architecture() = ('64bit', 'ELF')
WINDOWS (64bit)
(with 32bit column running in the 32bit subsystem)
official python installer 64bit 32bit
------------------------- ----- -----
os.name nt nt
sys.platform win32 win32
platform.system() Windows Windows
sysconfig.get_platform() win-amd64 win32
platform.machine() AMD64 AMD64
platform.architecture() ('64bit', 'WindowsPE') ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
msys2 64bit 32bit
----- ----- -----
os.name posix posix
sys.platform msys msys
platform.system() MSYS_NT-10.0 MSYS_NT-10.0-WOW
sysconfig.get_platform() msys-2.11.2-x86_64 msys-2.11.2-i686
platform.machine() x86_64 i686
platform.architecture() ('64bit', 'WindowsPE') ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
msys2 mingw-w64-x86_64-python3 mingw-w64-i686-python3
----- ------------------------ ----------------------
os.name nt nt
sys.platform win32 win32
platform.system() Windows Windows
sysconfig.get_platform() mingw mingw
platform.machine() AMD64 AMD64
platform.architecture() ('64bit', 'WindowsPE') ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
cygwin 64bit 32bit
------ ----- -----
os.name posix posix
sys.platform cygwin cygwin
platform.system() CYGWIN_NT-10.0 CYGWIN_NT-10.0-WOW
sysconfig.get_platform() cygwin-3.0.1-x86_64 cygwin-3.0.1-i686
platform.machine() x86_64 i686
platform.architecture() ('64bit', 'WindowsPE') ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
Some remarks:
- there is also
distutils.util.get_platform()which is identical to `sysconfig.get_platform - anaconda on windows is same as official python windows installer
- I don't have a Mac nor a true 32bit system and was not motivated to do it online
To compare with your system, simply run this script (and please append results here if missing :)
from __future__ import print_function
import os
import sys
import platform
import sysconfig
print("os.name ", os.name)
print("sys.platform ", sys.platform)
print("platform.system() ", platform.system())
print("sysconfig.get_platform() ", sysconfig.get_platform())
print("platform.machine() ", platform.machine())
print("platform.architecture() ", platform.architecture())
How about a new answer:
import psutil
psutil.MACOS #True (OSX is deprecated)
psutil.WINDOWS #False
psutil.LINUX #False
This would be the output if I was using MACOS
I am using the WLST tool that comes with weblogic, and it doesn't implement the platform package.
wls:/offline> import os
wls:/offline> print os.name
java
wls:/offline> import sys
wls:/offline> print sys.platform
'java1.5.0_11'
Apart from patching the system javaos.py (issue with os.system() on windows 2003 with jdk1.5) (which I can't do, I have to use weblogic out of the box), this is what I use:
def iswindows():
os = java.lang.System.getProperty( "os.name" )
return "win" in os.lower()
/usr/bin/python3.2
def cls():
from subprocess import call
from platform import system
os = system()
if os == 'Linux':
call('clear', shell = True)
elif os == 'Windows':
call('cls', shell = True)
For Jython the only way to get os name I found is to check os.name Java property (tried with sys, os and platform modules for Jython 2.5.3 on WinXP):
def get_os_platform():
"""return platform name, but for Jython it uses os.name Java property"""
ver = sys.platform.lower()
if ver.startswith('java'):
import java.lang
ver = java.lang.System.getProperty("os.name").lower()
print('platform: %s' % (ver))
return ver
Interesting results on windows 8:
>>> import os
>>> os.name
'nt'
>>> import platform
>>> platform.system()
'Windows'
>>> platform.release()
'post2008Server'
Edit: That's a bug
Watch out if you're on Windows with Cygwin where os.name is posix.
>>> import os, platform
>>> print os.name
posix
>>> print platform.system()
CYGWIN_NT-6.3-WOW
I know this is an old question but I believe that my answer is one that might be helpful to some people who are looking for an easy, simple to understand pythonic way to detect OS in their code. Tested on python3.7
from sys import platform
class UnsupportedPlatform(Exception):
pass
if "linux" in platform:
print("linux")
elif "darwin" in platform:
print("mac")
elif "win" in platform:
print("windows")
else:
raise UnsupportedPlatform
If you not looking for the kernel version etc, but looking for the linux distribution you may want to use the following
in python2.6+
>>> import platform
>>> print platform.linux_distribution()
('CentOS Linux', '6.0', 'Final')
>>> print platform.linux_distribution()[0]
CentOS Linux
>>> print platform.linux_distribution()[1]
6.0
in python2.4
>>> import platform
>>> print platform.dist()
('centos', '6.0', 'Final')
>>> print platform.dist()[0]
centos
>>> print platform.dist()[1]
6.0
Obviously, this will work only if you are running this on linux. If you want to have more generic script across platforms, you can mix this with code samples given in other answers.
in the same vein....
import platform
is_windows=(platform.system().lower().find("win") > -1)
if(is_windows): lv_dll=LV_dll("my_so_dll.dll")
else: lv_dll=LV_dll("./my_so_dll.so")
try this:
import os
os.uname()
and you can make it :
info=os.uname()
info[0]
info[1]
Check the available tests with module platform and print the answer out for your system:
import platform
print dir(platform)
for x in dir(platform):
if x[0].isalnum():
try:
result = getattr(platform, x)()
print "platform."+x+": "+result
except TypeError:
continue
You can also use only platform module without importing os module to get all the information.
>>> import platform
>>> platform.os.name
'posix'
>>> platform.uname()
('Darwin', 'mainframe.local', '15.3.0', 'Darwin Kernel Version 15.3.0: Thu Dec 10 18:40:58 PST 2015; root:xnu-3248.30.4~1/RELEASE_X86_64', 'x86_64', 'i386')
A nice and tidy layout for reporting purpose can be achieved using this line:
for i in zip(['system','node','release','version','machine','processor'],platform.uname()):print i[0],':',i[1]
That gives this output:
system : Darwin
node : mainframe.local
release : 15.3.0
version : Darwin Kernel Version 15.3.0: Thu Dec 10 18:40:58 PST 2015; root:xnu-3248.30.4~1/RELEASE_X86_64
machine : x86_64
processor : i386
What is missing usually is the operating system version but you should know if you are running windows, linux or mac a platform indipendent way is to use this test:
In []: for i in [platform.linux_distribution(),platform.mac_ver(),platform.win32_ver()]:
....: if i[0]:
....: print 'Version: ',i[0]
Returns the system/OS name, such as 'Linux', 'Darwin', 'Java', 'Windows'. An empty string is returned if the value cannot be determined.
import platform
system = platform.system().lower()
is_windows = system == 'windows'
is_linux = system == 'linux'
is_mac = system == 'darwin'
If you are running macOS X and run platform.system() you get darwin
because macOS X is built on Apple's Darwin OS. Darwin is the kernel of macOS X and is essentially macOS X without the GUI.
This solution works for both python and jython.
module os_identify.py:
import platform
import os
# This module contains functions to determine the basic type of
# OS we are running on.
# Contrary to the functions in the `os` and `platform` modules,
# these allow to identify the actual basic OS,
# no matter whether running on the `python` or `jython` interpreter.
def is_linux():
try:
platform.linux_distribution()
return True
except:
return False
def is_windows():
try:
platform.win32_ver()
return True
except:
return False
def is_mac():
try:
platform.mac_ver()
return True
except:
return False
def name():
if is_linux():
return "Linux"
elif is_windows():
return "Windows"
elif is_mac():
return "Mac"
else:
return "<unknown>"
Use like this:
import os_identify
print "My OS: " + os_identify.name()
How about a simple Enum implementation like the following? No need for external libs!
import platform
from enum import Enum
class OS(Enum):
def checkPlatform(osName):
return osName.lower()== platform.system().lower()
MAC = checkPlatform("darwin")
LINUX = checkPlatform("linux")
WINDOWS = checkPlatform("windows") #I haven't test this one
Simply you can access with Enum value
if OS.LINUX.value:
print("Cool it is Linux")
P.S It is python3
You can look at the code in pyOSinfo which is part of the pip-date package, to get the most relevant OS information, as seen from your Python distribution.
One of the most common reasons people want to check their OS is for terminal compatibility and if certain system commands are available. Unfortunately, the success of this checking is somewhat dependent on your python installation and OS. For example, uname is not available on most Windows python packages. The above python program will show you the output of the most commonly used built-in functions, already provided by os, sys, platform, site.
So the best way to get only the essential code is looking at that as an example. (I guess I could have just pasted it here, but that would not have been politically correct.)
I am late to the game but, just in case anybody needs it, this a function I use to make adjustments on my code so it runs on Windows, Linux and MacOs:
import sys
def get_os(osoptions={'linux':'linux','Windows':'win','macos':'darwin'}):
'''
get OS to allow code specifics
'''
opsys = [k for k in osoptions.keys() if sys.platform.lower().find(osoptions[k].lower()) != -1]
try:
return opsys[0]
except:
return 'unknown_OS'
