DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / lsb-release / lsb_release.1.en
LSB_RELEASE(1) User Commands LSB_RELEASE(1)

lsb_release - print distribution-specific information (minimal implementation).

lsb_release [options]

This is a bare-bones version of the lsb_release command, implemented as a tiny POSIX shell script (less than 100 lines of commented code).

Instead of using LSB packages, this version of lsb_release uses the information in /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release. Nevertheless, the output of this version is byte-for-byte compatible with the Python-based version provided by Debian and its derivatives.

Using this implementation it is possible to avoid installing Python in a base OS image while still retaining compatibility with older scripts that expect lsb_release to exist.

The program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes ("--"). A summary of options are included below.

Show a help message with a list of options and exit.
Show LSB modules this system supports.
Show distributor ID.
Show description of this distribution.
Show release number of this distribution.
Show code name of this distribution.
Show all of the above information.
Show requested information in short format.

/usr/lib/os-release
Distribution-provided file with operating system identification data.
/etc/os-release
Machine-specific file with operating system identification data. If present, /etc/os-release is read instead of /usr/lib/os-release.

os-release(5)

Gioele Barabucci <https://gioele.io>

This implementation of lsb_release is free software released under the terms of the ISC license.

2022-09-26 lsb_release 12.0