tessl/pypi-distro

Distro - an OS platform information API

—

Pending

Quality

Pending

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Pending

The risk profile of this skill

Overview

Eval results

Files

Distro

Name: tessl/pypi-distro
Author: tessl

A reliable and comprehensive API for retrieving information about the operating system distribution on Linux and BSD-based systems. It serves as the recommended replacement for Python's deprecated platform.linux_distribution function, offering machine-readable distribution IDs, version information, and codenames through multiple detection methods.

Package Information

Package Name: distro
Language: Python
Installation: pip install distro
Version: 1.9.0
License: Apache License 2.0

Core Imports

import distro

For accessing specific functions directly:

from distro import id, name, version, info

For using the main class:

from distro import LinuxDistribution

Basic Usage

import distro

# Get basic distribution information
print(f"Distribution ID: {distro.id()}")
print(f"Distribution Name: {distro.name()}")  
print(f"Version: {distro.version()}")
print(f"Codename: {distro.codename()}")

# Get comprehensive information
info = distro.info()
print(f"Complete info: {info}")

# Pretty formatted output
print(f"Pretty name: {distro.name(pretty=True)}")
print(f"Pretty version: {distro.version(pretty=True)}")

# Version components
major, minor, build = distro.version_parts()
print(f"Version parts: {major}.{minor}.{build}")

Architecture

Distro uses a hierarchical data source approach with fallback mechanisms:

Primary: /etc/os-release file (modern Linux standard)
Secondary: lsb_release command output (LSB-compliant systems)
Tertiary: Distribution-specific release files (/etc/*-release)
Fallback: uname command (BSD systems)

The LinuxDistribution class encapsulates all detection logic with caching for performance. Module-level convenience functions use a global instance for simple access patterns.

Capabilities

Core Distribution Information

Essential functions for identifying and describing the operating system distribution, including machine-readable IDs, human-readable names, version strings, and codenames.

def id() -> str: ...
def name(pretty: bool = False) -> str: ...
def version(pretty: bool = False, best: bool = False) -> str: ...
def codename() -> str: ...
def like() -> str: ...
def info(pretty: bool = False, best: bool = False) -> InfoDict: ...

Core Distribution Information

Version Components

Functions for parsing and accessing individual components of version numbers, including major version, minor version, and build numbers.

def version_parts(best: bool = False) -> Tuple[str, str, str]: ...
def major_version(best: bool = False) -> str: ...
def minor_version(best: bool = False) -> str: ...
def build_number(best: bool = False) -> str: ...

Version Components

Data Source Access

Low-level access to the underlying data sources that distro uses for distribution detection, including os-release files, lsb_release command, distro release files, and uname command.

def os_release_info() -> Dict[str, str]: ...
def lsb_release_info() -> Dict[str, str]: ...
def distro_release_info() -> Dict[str, str]: ...
def uname_info() -> Dict[str, str]: ...
def os_release_attr(attribute: str) -> str: ...
def lsb_release_attr(attribute: str) -> str: ...
def distro_release_attr(attribute: str) -> str: ...
def uname_attr(attribute: str) -> str: ...

Data Source Access

LinuxDistribution Class

The main class that encapsulates all distribution detection logic with configurable data sources and custom file paths for testing or alternative environments.

class LinuxDistribution:
    def __init__(
        self,
        include_lsb: Optional[bool] = None,
        os_release_file: str = "",
        distro_release_file: str = "",
        include_uname: Optional[bool] = None,
        root_dir: Optional[str] = None,
        include_oslevel: Optional[bool] = None,
    ) -> None: ...

LinuxDistribution Class

Types

from typing import TypedDict, Tuple, Dict, Optional

class VersionDict(TypedDict):
    major: str
    minor: str
    build_number: str

class InfoDict(TypedDict):
    id: str
    version: str
    version_parts: VersionDict
    like: str
    codename: str

# Package version
__version__: str

# Normalization constants
NORMALIZED_OS_ID: Dict[str, str]
NORMALIZED_LSB_ID: Dict[str, str] 
NORMALIZED_DISTRO_ID: Dict[str, str]

Normalization Constants

The distro package uses normalization tables to map various distribution identifiers to standardized names for reliable cross-distribution compatibility.

OS Release ID Normalization

NORMALIZED_OS_ID = {
    "ol": "oracle",  # Oracle Linux
    "opensuse-leap": "opensuse",  # Newer versions of OpenSUSE report as opensuse-leap
}

Maps ID values from /etc/os-release files to normalized distribution identifiers.

LSB Release ID Normalization

NORMALIZED_LSB_ID = {
    "enterpriseenterpriseas": "oracle",  # Oracle Enterprise Linux 4
    "enterpriseenterpriseserver": "oracle",  # Oracle Linux 5  
    "redhatenterpriseworkstation": "rhel",  # RHEL 6, 7 Workstation
    "redhatenterpriseserver": "rhel",  # RHEL 6, 7 Server
    "redhatenterprisecomputenode": "rhel",  # RHEL 6 ComputeNode
}

Maps Distributor ID values from lsb_release command output to normalized identifiers.

Distro Release File ID Normalization

NORMALIZED_DISTRO_ID = {
    "redhat": "rhel",  # RHEL 6.x, 7.x
}

Maps distribution identifiers derived from release file names (e.g., /etc/redhat-release) to normalized values.

Usage example:

import distro

# These normalization tables are used internally by distro.id()
# to ensure consistent identifiers across different data sources
dist_id = distro.id()  # Returns normalized ID like "rhel" instead of "redhat"

CLI Interface

Distro provides a command-line interface for system administration and scripting:

# Basic information
distro

# JSON output
distro -j

# Help
distro --help

def main() -> None:
    """
    Command-line interface entry point for the distro tool.
    
    Provides command-line access to distribution information with options for:
    - Basic text output (default)
    - JSON formatted output (-j/--json)
    - Help information (--help)
    
    This function is called when running 'distro' command or 'python -m distro'.
    """

Legacy Compatibility

def linux_distribution(full_distribution_name: bool = True) -> Tuple[str, str, str]:
    """
    DEPRECATED: Compatibility function for platform.linux_distribution()
    
    Returns:
        Tuple of (id_name, version, codename)
    """

Workspace: tessl
Visibility: Public
Created: 7 months ago
Last updated: 3 months ago
Describes: pkg:pypi/distro@1.9.x
Publish Source: CLI
Badge