Python 3.5 deprecates platform.linux_distribution() and Python 3.7 removes it altogether.

Still, there are many cases in which you need access to that information.

see: https://bugs.python.org/issue1322 for more information.

ld (linux distribution) attempts to implement a more robust and inclusive way of retrieving the distro related information based on new standards and old methods - namely:

• /etc/os-release
• /etc/lsb-release
• /etc/*-release

pip install ld

For dev:

pip install https://github.com/nir0s/ld/archive/master.tar.gz

The following distributions are handled:

• Red Hat
• CentOS
• Ubuntu
• Debian
• OpenSuSE
• SuSE
• Arch
• Slackware
• Exherbo
• Oracle

Soon:

• Gentoo
• Enterprise

ld exposes the following parmeters:

• ld.linux_distribution(full_distribution_name=False) - attempts to implement Python's platform.linux_distribution().

• ld.id() - e.g. ubuntu, fedora, debian...

• ld.name() - e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server, Ubuntu, openSUSE Leap

• ld.name(pretty=True) - e.g. openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64), CentOS Linux 7 (Core), Oracle Linux Server 7.1

• ld.version() - e.g. .. well.. the version number.

• ld.version(full=True) - e.g. 7 (Core), 23 (Twenty Three)

• ld.like() - e.g. suse, rhel fedora, debian

• ld.codename() - e.g. Core, trusty, Maipo

• ld.base() - e.g. arch, gentoo, rhel

You can also get the information from some of the release files:

• ld.os_release_info() - returns a dictionary containing the info found in /etc/os-release
• ld.lsb_release_info() - returns a dictionary containing the info found in /etc/lsb-release
• ld.distro_release_info() - returns a dictionary containing the info found in '/etc/*-release' matching your distribution.

• os-release is a new standard for providing distro-specific information. This is the first file looked at when attempting to retrieve the distro specific info.
• lsb-release is usually found by default in Ubuntu. When /etc/debian_version is found, we also check for /etc/lsb-release to retrieve the information from it.
• *-release - We fallback to the release file specific to the distribution (e.g. /etc/redhat-release, /etc/centos-release) and try to extract information (like the version and codename) from it.

NOTE: Running the tests require an internet connection

git clone git@github.com:nir0s/ld.git
cd ld
pip install tox
tox

Pull requests are always welcome..