On 7/15/19 2:48 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:
3) It spurs me to ask: So, if not via LSB, what is the canonical way to programatically determine the version of an installed Debian setup?Why would a program want to know? That won't give it very much information, since the system may very well have a mix of packages from different Debian releases plus other packages from other repositories, plus hand-installed packages, without talking about the fact that the Debian version number doesn't tell you which packages are installed. Stefan
Well, in this particular case, the Quest SMA is a Systems Management Appliance, which provides management and data-collection capabilities of devices on a network. When a sysadmin wants to use the SMA to find out about PCs on the network, particularly Linux PCs, particularly Debian PCs, particularly Debian PCs of a certain version, that SMA itself must first know that information. That's part of what the SMA does; it goes and and collects information about the devices. In this case, it wanted to know the Debian version, both major and minor version. Granted, to you and me, perhaps that particular information is not very informative, but it seems to mean something to the Suits (and to the programmers of the Quest SMA). Go figure.
-- Kent
