platform.dist(): detect Linux distribution version in a robust, standard way #48187

zooko · 2008-09-22T22:13:32Z

BPO	3937
Nosy	@malemburg
Superseder	bpo-1322: Deprecate platform.dist() and platform.linux_distribution() functions
Files	dist.patch.txt: patch to platform.dist() to execute lsb_release dist.patch.txt dist.patch.txt

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/malemburg'
closed_at = <Date 2008-09-23.18:10:25.169>
created_at = <Date 2008-09-22.22:13:31.761>
labels = ['type-bug', 'library']
title = 'platform.dist(): detect Linux distribution version in a robust, standard way'
updated_at = <Date 2010-08-12.02:32:40.102>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/zooko'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2010-08-12.02:32:40.102>
actor = 'zooko'
assignee = 'lemburg'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2008-09-23.18:10:25.169>
closer = 'lemburg'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2008-09-22.22:13:31.761>
creator = 'zooko'
dependencies = []
files = ['11562', '11563', '11573']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 3937
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 6.0
messages = ['73601', '73604', '73641', '73651', '73653', '113650']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['lemburg', 'zooko', 'draghuram']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'duplicate'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = '1322'
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue3937'
versions = ['Python 3.1', 'Python 2.7']

zooko · 2008-09-22T22:13:30Z

platform.dist() returns ('debian', 'lenny/sid', '') on my Ubuntu 8.04
Hardy system. Investigating shows that there are a few techniques in
platform.py to parse the version-number-files of different Linux
distributions. This patch adds a command to try executing "lsb_release"
first of all. lsb_release is the standard way to do this, originally
published in 2001:

http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_1.0.0/gLSB/lsbrelease.html

and currently standardized here:

http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_3.2.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/lsbrelease.html

If invoking "lsb_release" results in exit code 0 and some non-empty,
non-all-whitespace string on stdout, then dist() returns that. Else,
dist falls back to the old (current) hacks.

There is a drawback to this: invoking three successive subprocesses
takes a bit of time. Hopefully nobody needs to invoke platform.dist()
in a time-critical moment...

With this patch, platform.dist() return:
('Ubuntu', '8.04', 'hardy')

Oh, this patch also updates the docstring of dist() to explain what is
meant by "distribution", "version", and "id".

zooko · 2008-09-22T22:45:48Z

Here's a new version of this patch which differs only in having slightly
more correct documentation.

draghuram · 2008-09-23T14:12:12Z

Please take a look at bpo-1322 for some discussion on this topic.

zooko · 2008-09-23T17:15:58Z

Here is an updated version of my patch which tries parsing
/etc/lsb-release first and only if that fails tries executing
lsb_release. The reason is that executing lsb_release in a subprocess
takes half-a-second on my high-performance Athlon64 Ubuntu workstation,
and also that some installations have /etc/lsb-release but not
lsb_release. See the docstring for more details about why to do it this
way and exactly what it does.

malemburg · 2008-09-23T18:10:25Z

As explained in bpo-1322. platform.dist() has been superseded by
platform.linux_distribution().

Please check what platform.linux_distribution() returns on your platform
using Python 2.6rc2.

I'm closing this ticket since it's basically a duplicate of bpo-1322.

zooko · 2010-08-12T02:32:37Z

Please check what platform.linux_distribution() returns on your platform using Python 2.6rc2.

Here are the results of that. Summary: looks fine to me.

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/waterfall

Here are the scripts that are generating these results:

http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/misc/build_helpers/show-tool-versions.py?rev=4643#L8

http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/browser/trunk/src/allmydata/__init__.py?rev=4687#L80

The relevant parts of the results are summarized below:

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Eugen lenny-amd64

platform: Linux-2.6.26-1-vserver-amd64-x86_64-with-debian-5.0.5

python: 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jan 24 2010, 17:44:40) [GCC 4.3.2]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-debian_5.0.5-x86_64-64bit

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/hardy-amd64

platform: Linux-2.6.32-24-server-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-10.04-lucid
linux_distribution: ('Ubuntu', '10.04', 'lucid')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Apr 16 2010, 13:57:41) [GCC 4.4.3]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-Ubuntu_10.04-x86_64-64bit_ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Shawn jaunty amd64

platform: Linux-2.6.32-24-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-10.04-lucid
linux_distribution: ('Ubuntu', '10.04', 'lucid')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Apr 16 2010, 13:57:41) [GCC 4.4.3]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-Ubuntu_10.04-x86_64-64bit_ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Zooko ubuntu-amd64 yukyuk

platform: Linux-2.6.32.8yukyuk36-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-10.04-lucid

python: 2.6.4+ (r264:75706, Feb 16 2010, 02:54:39) [GCC 4.4.3], maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-Ubuntu_10.04-x86_64-64bit_ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Ruben Fedora

platform: Linux-2.6.33.5-rscloud-x86_64-with-fedora-15-Rawhide
linux_distribution: ('Fedora', '15', 'Rawhide')

python: 2.7 (r27:82500, Jul 26 2010, 18:19:48) [GCC 4.5.0 20100716 (Red Hat 4.5.0-3)]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-fedora_15-x86_64-64bit_ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Arthur lenny c7 32bit

platform: Linux-2.6.24dedibox-r8-c7-i686-with-debian-5.0.5

python: 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jan 24 2010, 14:53:14) [GCC 4.3.2]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-debian_5.0.5-i686-32bit

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/David A. OpenSolaris i386

platform: SunOS-5.11-i86pc-i386-32bit

python: 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Mar 11 2009, 04:50:47) [C]
maxunicode: 65535

platform: SunOS-5.11-i86pc-i386-32bit

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Randy FreeBSD-amd64

platform: FreeBSD-8.1-STABLE-amd64-64bit-ELF

python: 2.5.5 (r255:77872, Mar 12 2010, 08:40:28) [GCC 4.2.1 20070719 [FreeBSD]]
maxunicode: 1114111

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Kyle OpenBSD-4.6 amd64

platform: OpenBSD-4.6-amd64-Genuine_Intel-R-CPU_000@_2.93GHz-64bit-ELF
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.2 (r262:71600, Jul 4 2009, 23:29:57) [GCC 3.3.5 (propolice)]
maxunicode: 65535

platform: OpenBSD-4.6-amd64-Genuine_Intel-R-CPU_000@_2.93GHz-64bit-ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Ludo NixOS-amd64

platform: Linux-2.6.32.13-x86_64-with-glibc2.2.5
python: 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Mar 23 2010, 09:42:45) [GCC 4.4.3] , maxunicode: 65535 , stdout.encoding: None , stdin.encoding: None , filesystem.encoding: UTF-8

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/MM netbsd5 i386 warp

platform: NetBSD-5.0.2-i386-32bit-ELF
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79063, Jun 23 2010, 11:07:30) [GCC 4.1.3 20080704 prerelease (NetBSD nb2 20081120)] , maxunicode: 65535

platform: NetBSD-5.0.2-i386-32bit-ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/FranXois lenny-armv5tel

platform: Linux-2.6.32-trunk-iop32x-armv5tel-with-debian-squeeze-sid
linux_distribution: ('debian', 'squeeze/sid', '')

python: 2.6.5+ (release26-maint, Jul 7 2010, 00:21:05) [GCC 4.4.4]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-debian_squeeze/sid-armv5tel-32bit_ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/FreeStorm CentOS5-i386

platform: Linux-2.6.18-194.8.1.el5-i686-athlon-with-redhat-5.5-Final

python: 2.4.3 (#1, Sep 3 2009, 15:37:12) [GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-46)]
maxunicode: 1114111

platform: Linux-redhat_5.5-i686-32bit_ELF

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/zooko ootles Mac-amd64 10.4

platform: Darwin-8.11.1-i386-32bit

python: 2.5.4 (release25-maint:72153M, Apr 30 2009, 12:28:20) [GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367)]
maxunicode: 65535

platform: Darwin-8.11.1-i386-32bit

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Zooko zomp Mac-amd64 10.6 py2.6

platform: Darwin-10.4.0-i386-64bit
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Feb 11 2010, 00:51:29) [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)]
maxunicode: 65535

platform: Darwin-10.4.0-i386-64bit

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/FreeStorm WinXP-x86 py2.6

platform: Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP3
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79096, Mar 19 2010, 21:48:26) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)]
maxunicode: 65535

platform: Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP3

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/FreeStorm Win7-amd64-mingw py2.6

platform: Windows-post2008Server-6.1.7600
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79096, Mar 19 2010, 18:02:59) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)]
maxunicode: 65535

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Soultcer Win7-64 py2.6

platform: Windows-post2008Server-6.1.7600
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79096, Mar 19 2010, 18:02:59) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)]
maxunicode: 65535

http://tahoe-lafs.org/buildbot/builders/Dcoder Win7-64 py2.6

platform: Windows-post2008Server-6.1.7600
linux_distribution: ('', '', '')

python: 2.6.5 (r265:79096, Mar 19 2010, 18:02:59) [MSC v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)]
maxunicode: 65535

platform: Windows-post2008Server-6.1.7600

zooko mannequin added stdlib Python modules in the Lib dir type-bug An unexpected behavior, bug, or error labels Sep 22, 2008

benjaminp assigned malemburg Sep 22, 2008

malemburg closed this as completed Sep 23, 2008

ezio-melotti transferred this issue from another repository Apr 10, 2022

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platform.dist(): detect Linux distribution version in a robust, standard way #48187

platform.dist(): detect Linux distribution version in a robust, standard way #48187

zooko mannequin commented Sep 22, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Sep 22, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Sep 22, 2008

draghuram mannequin commented Sep 23, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Sep 23, 2008

malemburg commented Sep 23, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Aug 12, 2010

platform.dist(): detect Linux distribution version in a robust, standard way #48187

platform.dist(): detect Linux distribution version in a robust, standard way #48187

Comments

zooko mannequin commented Sep 22, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Sep 22, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Sep 22, 2008

draghuram mannequin commented Sep 23, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Sep 23, 2008

malemburg commented Sep 23, 2008

zooko mannequin commented Aug 12, 2010