GNU bug report logs - #34154
[PATCH] /etc/os-release

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From: Efraim Flashner <efraim <at> flashner.co.il>
To: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 34154 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: [bug#34154] [PATCH] /etc/os-release
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2019 09:20:18 +0200

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On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 10:38:05PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> Efraim Flashner <efraim <at> flashner.co.il> skribis:
> 
> > Currently GuixSD ships without an '/etc/os-release' file. This simple
> > service aims to correct this.
> 
> I’m not very enthusiastic.  :-)
> 
> I think /etc/os-release is a hack and the primary motivation behind it
> was (I believe) to allow proprietary programs to make assumptions on the
> file system layout, available services, etc. based on the distribution
> running.
> 
> WDYT?  Did you encounter situations where lack of this file was causing
> problems?
> 

I found a man page online from freedesktop.org¹, it seems that it's been
aborbed by systemd at some point. It looks like some build systems can
try to get information from it during building if they have
distro-specific things to do. The only software that I know of that we
have that would use it would be inxi.
guix environment --ad-hoc inxi-minimal -- inxi -S
"Distro: Unknown" isn't that big of a deal, and we could just submit a
patch upstream if we really wanted it fixed.

That said, I'm happy enough to plop it in my own os-config and drop the
patch.

¹https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/os-release.html

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Efraim Flashner   <efraim <at> flashner.co.il>   אפרים פלשנר
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