Python: What OS am I running on?

Question

What do I need to look at to see whether I\'m on Windows or Unix, etc?

Answer 1

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.platform is 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())