Bug#1147497: base-files: /etc/os-release on Debian GNU/Hurd: NAME should be "Debian GNU/Hurd" and not "Debian GNU/Linux"

[Thomas Dreibholz]

Hi,

I used the current Debian Hurd image as described in https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/latest/hurd-i386/README:

demo@debian:~$ uname -a
GNU debian 0.9 GNU-Mach 1.8+git20250731-up-486/Hurd-0.9 i686-AT386 GNU

demo@debian:~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Hurd 13 (trixie)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="13"
VERSION="13 (trixie)"
VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.0
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/";
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support";
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/";

demo@debian:~$ ls -al /etc/os-release


demo@debian:~$ ls -al /usr/lib/os-release
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 285 mai   12  2025 /usr/lib/os-release

Checking the sources:

demo@debian:~$ sudo apt source base-files

https://salsa.debian.org/sanvila/base-files.git
Please use:
git clone https://salsa.debian.org/sanvila/base-files.git
to retrieve the latest (possibly unreleased) updates to the package.
Trenger å skaffe 69,8 kB fra kildekodearkivet.

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21 mai   12  2025 /etc/os-release-> ../usr/lib/os-release MERK: «base-files»-pakker blir vedlikeholdt i versjonskontrollsystemet «Git» på: Hent:1 http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20250807T000000Z sid/main base-files 13.8 (dsc) [1 215 B] Hent:2 http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20250807T000000Z sid/main base-files 13.8 (tar) [68,6 kB]

Hentet 69,8 kB på 1s (87,3 kB/s)
dpkg-source: info: extracting base-files in base-files-13.8
dpkg-source: info: unpacking base-files_13.8.tar.xz

demo@debian:~$ cat base-files-13.8/etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian #OSNAME# 13 (trixie)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="13"
VERSION="13 (trixie)"
VERSION_CODENAME=trixie
DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.0
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/";
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support";
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/";

The string "Debian GNU/Linux" is hard-coded.

May be base-files in Debian Hurd needs an update?

Den 12.09.2026 14:08, skrev Santiago Vila:

On Sat, Sep 12, 2026 at 12:27:36PM +0100, Thomas Dreibholz wrote:

On Debian GNU/Hurd architectures (hurd-i386 / hurd-amd64), /etc/os-release
correctly sets PRETTY_NAME to "Debian GNU/Hurd...", but NAME remains set to
"Debian GNU/Linux".

Expected value:
NAME="Debian GNU/Hurd" Actual value: NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"

That's simply not possible... Both PRETTY_NAME and NAME come from the
etc/os-release template in the source code (which you can get by doing
"apt-get source base-files"), and the template reads like this:

PRETTY_NAME="#OSNAME# forky/sid"
NAME="#OSNAME#"

So, unless you changed the file by hand, or allowed a program to change the 
file,
those two fields should be the same.

Moreover, you can see how the latest version of the package was built here:

https://buildd.debian.org/status/fetch.php?pkg=base-files&arch=hurd-amd64&ver=14.2&stamp=1780222272&raw=0

Quote:

sed -e "s&#OSNAME#&Debian GNU/Hurd&g" etc/os-release > 
debian/base-files/etc/os-release

Can you "apt-get download base-files" and examine the actual .deb package 
distributed
by Debian, not the file /etc/os-release in your system?

Thanks.

--
Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Med vennlig hilsen

=======================================================================
 Thomas Dreibholz

 Simula Metropolitan Centre for Digital Engineering
 Centre for Resilient Networks and Applications
 Stensberggata 27
 0170 Oslo, Norway
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 E-Mail:dre...@simula.no
 Homepage:http://simula.no/people/dreibh
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