is_windows returns TRUE if the OS on the current
platform is Microsoft windows-based. is_unix returns TRUE if
the OS is Unix based (pretty much anything that isn't Windows, including OS
X).
is_mac, is_linux, is_bsd, is_solaris return
TRUE if the OS is Apple OS X, Linux, FreeBSD/NetBSD, or Solaris
respectively.
is_64_bit_os returns TRUE when the operating system is 64-bit.
The assert_* functions return nothing but throw an error if the
corresponding is_* functions return FALSE.
References
With the exception of is_windows and is_unix that
use .Platform$OS.type, the OS is determined from
Sys.info()[["sysname"]], which (not on Windows) is calculated via the
OS uname progam. GNU has more information on the return value:
https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Platform-Type.html
and Wikipedia has a nice list of possible values:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uname#Examples