MAL:  why do you say it is better to look for
/etc/$supportedplatform-release files first instead of looking for
/etc/lsb-release first?

I do not know if /etc/lsb-release is suitably generic -- I've tried it
only on a few platforms.  I do know that executing lsb_release is
suitably generic since it is standard, but I prefer not to try it first
since it imposes about half-a-second delay.