Introduction
	Your VPS runs one of two operating systems — FreeBSD 15 or Rocky Linux 10 — and most of the time you already know which. When you don’t (you administer several servers, you are following a guide and need to know which set of commands applies, or you just want to confirm the exact version before an upgrade), the uname command answers the question in a second. This page covers uname on both systems and the extra commands that report the full distribution version.
	The uname Command
	Run on its own, uname prints the kernel name — the quickest way to tell the two systems apart: $ uname FreeBSD ← on a FreeBSD 15 VPS $ uname Linux ← on a Rocky Linux 10 VPS Note that Rocky Linux (like every Linux distribution) reports Linux — that is the name of the kernel, not the distribution. To see everything uname knows at once, add -a (“all”): $ uname -a (FreeBSD 15) FreeBSD vps.example.com 15.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE releng/15.0 GENERIC amd64 $ uname -a (Rocky Linux 10) Linux vps.example.com 6.12.0-55.el10.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC ... x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux Each piece of that line has its own flag, so you can ask for just the part you want. These flags are standard and work the same on both systems:  Flag   Shows   Example   -s   Kernel name (the default)   FreeBSD / Linux   -n   Network node (host) name   vps.example.com   -r   Kernel release   15.0-RELEASE / 6.12.0-55.el10.x86_64   -v   Kernel version (build details)   releng/15.0… / #1 SMP…   -m   Machine hardware (architecture)   amd64 / x86_64   -p   Processor architecture   amd64 / x86_64   -a   All of the above on one line   (see above)  So uname -s tells you the OS family, uname -m the architecture (both VPS platforms are 64-bit Intel/AMD — amd64 and x86_64 are the same thing under two names), and uname -r the kernel release. FreeBSD adds -U and -K for the userland and kernel version numbers; on Linux, uname -o prints GNU/Linux.
	Finding the Distribution Version
	There is one catch on Rocky Linux: uname -r reports the kernel release (6.12.0-55.el10.x86_64), not “Rocky Linux 10.” The kernel and the distribution are versioned separately, so to read the distribution name and version you look elsewhere. On FreeBSD the two move together, but a dedicated command reports the exact patch level. On FreeBSD 15, use freebsd-version. It distinguishes the installed userland from the running kernel — useful after applying a security patch, when the two can briefly differ: $ freebsd-version # installed userland, e.g. 15.0-RELEASE-p2 $ freebsd-version -k # the kernel that is installed $ freebsd-version -u # the userland that is running On Rocky Linux 10, the distribution version lives in two files, and hostnamectl shows it alongside the kernel: $ cat /etc/redhat-release Rocky Linux release 10.0 (Red Quartz) $ cat /etc/os-release NAME="Rocky Linux" VERSION="10.0 (Red Quartz)" PRETTY_NAME="Rocky Linux 10.0 (Red Quartz)" ID="rocky" ... $ hostnamectl Static hostname: vps.example.com Operating System: Rocky Linux 10.0 (Red Quartz) Kernel: Linux 6.12.0-55.el10.x86_64 Architecture: x86-64 The /etc/os-release file is the dependable, machine-readable source — scripts commonly read its ID and VERSION_ID fields to decide what to do on a given system.
	Documentation
	For the full list of options, read man uname on the VPS, or the uname(1) manual page online at www.gsp.com/support/man/. On FreeBSD see also freebsd-version(1); on Rocky Linux, os-release(5). For more commands like this one, see The Unix Commands.