UNIX VERSION AND DISTRO INFORMATION
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To see the current *NIX kernel make and version, use "uname -v".
To show ALL *NIX kernel info, use "uname -a".

As for detecting which distro is currently running, unfortunately there is no real standard as to how to find out.  Several common locations should therefore be looked at in order to try and determine what distro is being run; a distro version string should appear in one of the following files (try to 'cat' them):

Most of the Linux distributions maintain release information file in the /etc directory.  Here is the list of release info file locations on some of the well known Linux/UNIX distributions:

Fedora          /etc/fedora-release
RedHat          /etc/redhat-release, /etc/redhat_version
CentOS          /etc/redhat-release
Debian          /etc/debian_release, /etc/debian_version
Ubuntu          /etc/lsb-release
Slackware       /etc/slackware-release, /etc/slackware-version
Gentoo          /etc/gentoo-release
Novell SuSE     /etc/SuSE-release, /etc/SUSE-release, /etc/suse-release
Mandrake        /etc/mandrake-release
Yellow Dog      /etc/yellowdog-release
Sun JDS         /etc/sun-release
Solaris/Sparc   /etc/release
UnitedLinux     /etc/UnitedLinux-release