I can easily do the patch to ignore symlinks and /etc/lsb-release but I am not sure of the appropriate way to look for lsb_update command, is distutils.spawn.find_executable( 'lsb_release' ) ok ?
If you need the patch earlier than begining of next week, you should do it. Otherwise I can make it.

On Mandriva 2007.1, the command exists if the package "lsb-release" is installed. I do not know if it is always installed (I selected a checkbox "LSB" during install, this checkbox is unchecked by default).
The output is:

[yann@localhost ~]$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version:    lsb-3.1-ia32:lsb-3.1-noarch:core-3.0-ia32:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:cxx-3.0-ia32:cxx-3.0-noarch:graphics-3.0-ia32:graphics-3.0-noarch:lsb-3.0-ia32:lsb-3.0-noarch:qt4-3.1-ia32:qt4-3.1-noarch
Distributor ID: MandrivaLinux
Description:    Mandriva Linux
Release:        2007.1
Codename:       Official

[yann@localhost ~]$ lsb_release -i
Distributor ID: MandrivaLinux

[yann@localhost ~]$ lsb_release -d
Description:    Mandriva Linux

[yann@localhost ~]$ lsb_release -r
Release:        2007.1


On Fedora 4 (rather old) , the command is in the package "redhat-lsb".

yc176684:src$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version:    1.3
Distributor ID: FedoraCore
Description:    Fedora Core release 4 (Stentz)
Release:        4
Codename:       Stentz

yc176684:src$ lsb_release -i
Distributor ID: FedoraCore

yc176684:src$ lsb_release -d
Description:    Fedora Core release 4 (Stentz)

yc176684:src$ lsb_release -r
Release:        4


On Fedora 7, the command is in the package "redhat-lsb" and seem to be installed by default.

gargamel:riviere% lsb_release -a
LSB
Version:    :core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch
:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch
Distributor ID: Fedora
Description:    Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
Release:        7
Codename:       Moonshine

gargamel:riviere% lsb_release -i
Distributor ID: Fedora

gargamel:riviere% lsb_release -d
Description:    Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)

gargamel:riviere% lsb_release -r
Release:        7

On 10/25/07, Raghuram Devarakonda < report@bugs.python.org> wrote:

Raghuram Devarakonda added the comment:

I think it is safe to ignore lsb-release. In fact, there seems to be a
command "lsb_release" that gives information about distribution. On my
SuSE box, this is what I get:

marvin:~# lsb_release -i
Distributor ID: SUSE LINUX
marvin:~# lsb_release -d
Description:    SUSE LINUX 10.1 (i586)
marvin:~# lsb_release -r
Release:        10.1

sapetnioc, can you check if this command exists on your system and if
so, it's output? platform.dist() can check for this command's existence
and if present, can perhaps use it to glean distro information. Please
let me know if you want to write the patch. I will do it otherwise.

----------
nosy: +draghuram

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