Sun seems to care about Solaris versus SunOS branding... Here is a mapping table that maps the `uname -sr` values to Sun's marketing names. SunOS 2.x == SunOS 2.x SunOS 3.x == SunOS 3.x Starting with 4.1.1B of SunOS we have the 'Solaris 1.0' release. SunOS 4.1.1B == Solaris 1.0 SunOS 4.1.2 == Solaris 1.0.1 SunOS 4.1.3 == Solaris 1.1 SunOS 4.1.3C == Solaris 1.1C SunOS 4.1.3_U1 == Solaris 1.1.1 SunOS 4.1.3_U1B == Solaris 1.1.1 B SunOS 4.1.4 == Solaris 1.1.2 The SunOS 5.x uname output maps to the Solaris 2.x numbers thru 2.6 SunOS 5.0 == Solaris 2.0 SunOS 5.1 == Solaris 2.1 SunOS 5.2 == Solaris 2.2 SunOS 5.3 == Solaris 2.3 SunOS 5.4 == Solaris 2.4 SunOS 5.5 == Solaris 2.5 SunOS 5.5.1 == Solaris 2.5.1 SunOS 5.6 == Solaris 2.6 After SunOS 5.6, they started number based on the second digit SunOS 5.7 == Solaris 7 SunOS 5.8 == Solaris 8 SunOS 5.9 == Solaris 9 The common terminology is to use the name "SunOS ..." to designate SunOS 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, and "Solaris ..." to designate SunOS 5.x.