<p>Sometimes I need to access some servers running Linux (or maybe another Unix-like SO), but I don't know how to verify which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution" rel="noreferrer">distribution</a> is in use on the server (there are times that even the "responsible" person for the server doesn't know). </p>

<p>Is there an easy and reliable way to discover that, one that is uniform and consistent across all of them?</p>

Try
```
uname -a
```