1) Check whether a directory exists before attempting to create it (avoids warning message)
2) Check whether podman volume exists before attempting to create it (avoids warning message)
3) Check which Linux distribution is running, so that Redis can be launched. I have only tested this on Linux Mint (which is Ubunto based) so please check the uname -rv command on your machine. It should return a string which includes "Alpine". The mechanism for checking the Linux version is not perfect, but we probably want to keep the run_tests as short as possible.
Any feedback welcomed. Have a great day!