Package: lsb
Version: 3.1-23.1
Severity: normal
Tags: patch
Lsb_release code tries first to determine the system's version based on APT's
policy ('apt-show policy') and, if it fails, it tries to obtain the
information from /etc/debian_version. This behaviour, I guess, was introduced
due to #341231.
The changelog in 3.0-15 said that /etc/debian_version has priority, but that
is not true.
lsb_release will not work in this scenario:
1.- A user installed the oldstable release ('X' currently)
2.- In preparation for an upgrade, he changes his sources.list to point to
the next release ('Y').
3.- The sysadmin run 'apt-get update' to get APT to reread the sources.list
4.- The sysadmin has doubts about the upgrade and does NOT upgrade the
system
In this situation, lsb_release will just pickup the first entry it parsed
from 'apt-show policy' (sorted, by name?). Under some circunstances, in the
above case it could be 'Y' instead of 'X' even though the system has *not*
been upgraded.
IMHO lsb_release should honor the contents of /etc/debian_version and, if the
contents refer to testing/unstable (i.e. not numeric) try to determine the
release based on policy.
Attached is a patch that changes it behaviour so that it will only try to
check APT's policy if it trying to distinguish between testing/unstable (or
'lenny/sid', or whatever). It also speeds up lsb_release a little bit.
Regards
Javier
--- lsb_release.orig 2007-06-01 18:08:23.000000000 +0200
+++ lsb_release 2007-06-01 23:41:16.000000000 +0200
@@ -160,8 +160,26 @@
distinfo['DESCRIPTION'] = '%(ID)s %(OS)s' % distinfo
+ if os.path.exists('/etc/debian_version'):
+ release = open('/etc/debian_version').read().strip()
+ if not release[0:1].isalpha():
+ # /etc/debian_version should be numeric
+ codename = lookup_codename(release, 'n/a')
+ distinfo.update({ 'RELEASE' : release, 'CODENAME' : codename })
+ else:
+ distinfo['RELEASE'] = release
+ distinfo['CODENAME'] = None
+
+ # Only use apt information if we did not get the proper information
+ # from /etc/debian_version or if we don't have a codename
+ # (which will happen if /etc/debian_version does not contain a
+ # number but some text like 'testing/unstable' or 'lenny/sid')
+ #
+ # This is slightly faster and less error prone in case the user
+ # has an entry in his /etc/apt/sources.list but has not actually
+ # upgraded the system.
rinfo = guess_release_from_apt()
- if rinfo:
+ if rinfo and not distinfo['CODENAME']:
release = rinfo.get('version')
if release:
codename = lookup_codename(release, 'n/a')
@@ -173,14 +191,6 @@
else:
codename = 'sid'
distinfo.update({ 'RELEASE' : release, 'CODENAME' : codename })
- elif os.path.exists('/etc/debian_version'):
- release = open('/etc/debian_version').read().strip()
- if not release[0:1].isalpha():
- # /etc/debian_version should be numeric
- codename = lookup_codename(release, 'n/a')
- distinfo.update({ 'RELEASE' : release, 'CODENAME' : codename })
- else:
- distinfo['RELEASE'] = release
if 'RELEASE' in distinfo:
distinfo['DESCRIPTION'] += ' %(RELEASE)s' % distinfo
