This is CLOSE to what I need. When my server is running on Windows, I get:

SQL> select dbms_utility.port_string from dual;

PORT_STRING
-------------------------------------------------
IBMPC/WIN_NT-8.1.0

Under Solaris, I get:

SQL> select dbms_utility.port_string from dual;

PORT_STRING
-------------------------------------------------
SVR4-be-8.1.0

Hmmmm....how do I know that's SOLARIS, and not some other System V R4-based UNIX? Is there a list of mappings of port string codes to OS names? Searching Metalink provided no clues. (I already own your book, btw, so I appreciate the pointer to it. I just missed that one.) 

 
SQL> select dbms_utility.port_string from dual
  2  /
:
 
PORT_STRING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HP9000/800-7.0-8.1.0
 
SQL>
this is 
uname -a
HP-UX hpn1 B.11.00 U 9000/800 621309343 unlimited-user license
running 8.1.6.2

 

SQL> select dbms_utility.port_string from dual;

PORT_STRING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MACOSX/OSX-10.2-Darwin-6.0-BE


Who'd have thought.... :-) 

Here we use the following query:

select rtrim(substr(replace(banner,'TNS for ',''),1,instr(replace(banner,'TNS for ',''),':')-1)) os
from   v$version
where  banner like 'TNS for %';

I use this query to fill a central table with information about all our databases. Look the result:

SQL> select os, count(*) from dbmon.hosts
  2  group by os;

OS                               COUNT(*)
------------------------------ ----------
32-bit Windows                          2
DEC OSF/1 AXP                           5
HPUX                                   69
Linux                                   8
Solaris                                 6

I think that the result of this query can be used joined with the result of PORT_STRING function to get a more detailed output. Note that I got "Solaris" in a Sun Solaris:

SQL> r
  1  select rtrim(substr(replace(banner,'TNS for ',''),1,instr(replace(banner,'TNS for ',''),':')-1)) os
  2  from   v$version
  3* where  banner like 'TNS for %'

OS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solaris

SQL> select dbms_utility.port_string from dual;

PORT_STRING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SVR4-be-64bit-8.1.0


SQL> host uname -a
SunOS tafraud 5.9 Generic_118558-39 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire
 

Here's another one as I noticed VMS is missing...

But it's strange that it shows ALPHA when in fact I run this instance on Itanium, and the OS version is 8.3 not 8.1
Oracle version is 10.2.0.4

An Alpha server running OpenVMS 8.4 and Oracle 10.2.0.5 shows the same.


SQL> select dbms_utility.port_string from dual;

PORT_STRING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALPHA/VMS-8.1.0-64

1 ligne sélectionnée.

SQL>

SQL> connect app_user/********@pods6
Connected.
SQL> select platform_id,platform_name from v$database;

PLATFORM_ID PLATFORM_NAME
----------- ------------------------------
          4 HP-UX IA (64-bit)

SQL> Conn app_user/********@pods4
Connected.
SQL> select platform_id,platform_name from v$database;

PLATFORM_ID PLATFORM_NAME
----------- ------------------------------
         13 Linux 64-bit for AMD

SQL> Conn app_user/********@pods3
Connected.
SQL> select platform_id,platform_name from v$database;

PLATFORM_ID PLATFORM_NAME
----------- ------------------------------
         12 Microsoft Windows x86 64-bit

SQL>