An uname - like call?

[Szilveszter Juhos]

elvira:~(ndgy)python
Python 1.5.1 (#1, Jan 20 1999, 20:01:05)  [GCC egcs-2.91.60 19981201 (e 
on linux2
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>>

How can I get this string in a script? It should be annoying to fork a
os.system("uname -a") since the OS ID is already in the interpreter
somehow. 

Szilva
http://elvira.dur.ac.uk/~ndgy/