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I was trying to figure out what Linux version I was using and I noticed that Linux could use uniformity improvements. 
Anyhow, a few tricks:
cat /etc/*-release
This could show the version of your OS, you can expect an output like:
CentOS release 5.6 (Final)
To determine the kernel version:
uname -r
This displays something like:
2.6.18
Is my system 64 bits? Try this:
uname -m
Which can produce something like this (in this example: an Intel x86, 64 bit system):
x86_64
Anyhow .. hope this is useful to someone out there 
.
For those working with Ubuntu, you can also try:
file /sbin/init
Which could give you something like this:
/sbin/init: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.24, BuildID[sha1]=0x07075fcb55b05aeb6286efabba63534fa6ecd213, stripped
