The distro (for: Linux Distribution) package provides information about the Linux distribution it runs on, such as a reliable machine-readable ID, or version information.

It is a renewed alternative implementation for Python's original platform.linux_distribution function, but it also provides much more functionality. An alternative implementation became necessary because Python 3.5 deprecated this function, and Python 3.7 is expected to remove it altogether. Its predecessor function platform.dist was already deprecated since Python 2.6 and is also expected to be removed in Python 3.7. Still, there are many cases in which access to that information is needed. See Python issue 1322 for more information.

The distro package implements a robust and inclusive way of retrieving the information about a Linux distribution based on new standards and old methods, namely from these data sources (from high to low precedence):

• The os-release file /etc/os-release, if present.
• The output of the lsb_release command, if available.
• The distro release file (/etc/*(-|_)(release|version)), if present.

Installation of the latest released version from PyPI:

pip install distro

Installation of the latest development version:

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

The API documentation for the distro package is on RTD: latest API documentation.

The distro package is supported on Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.4 and 3.5, and on any Linux distribution that provides one or more of the data sources used by this package.

This package is tested on Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.4 and 3.5, with test data that mimics the exact behavior of the data sources of a number of Linux distributions.

python
>>> import distro
>>> distro.linux_distribution(full_distribution_name=False)
'('centos', '7.1.1503', 'Core')'

Several more functions are available. For a complete description of the API, see the latest API documentation.

Pull requests are always welcome to deal with specific distributions or just for general merriment.

Reference implementations for supporting additional distributions and file formats can be found here:

• https://github.com/saltstack/salt/blob/develop/salt/grains/core.py#L1172
• https://github.com/chef/ohai/blob/master/lib/ohai/plugins/linux/platform.rb