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c33s
Asked: 2016-12-21 10:05:50 +0800 CST

How to install a minimal version of "lsb_release" on CentOS

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comming from debian i am currently working with centos7.

i am trying to install the lsb_release command, which is quite small.

looking for packages which provide lsb_release with

yum provides */lsb_release

shows me the following packages which provide the package

Repo        : epel
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/lib/dkms/lsb_release

redhat-lsb-core-4.1-27.el7.centos.1.i686 : LSB Core module support
Repo        : base
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/bin/lsb_release

redhat-lsb-core-4.1-27.el7.centos.1.x86_64 : LSB Core module support
Repo        : base
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/bin/lsb_release

installing it with yum install redhat-lsb shows me quite a lot dependencies which i simply don't want and need.

Installing for dependencies:
---snip---
emacs-filesystem
---snip---
libXfont
---snip---
mailx
---snip---

full list: http://pastie.org/10984474

why centos need for example mailx to give me information of the current installed system?

is there some way to install just a minimal lsb_release without *X*, qt*, gtk2, emacs-filesystem, desktop-file-utils, ...

installing it with yum install dkms has a much lighter footprint but feels wrong to me and also puts the command in the wrong directory /usr/lib/dkms/lsb_release also the dependency of kernel-devel is doubtful.

i know there are some alternatives https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-check-centos-version but my question references to the lsb_release command.

edit:

also a much smaller footprint has the package redhat-lsb-core but it still requires mailx

centos package-management

1 Answers

  1. The dependencies are because LSB Core specifies for mailx and a few other things to be installed, in turn based on conventions from POSIX. You are installing LSB Core, not just the shell script that prints LSB and distro information.

    Some software parses /etc/redhat-release for the version, which isn't standard but is there in EL distros.

    Knowing both methods helps identify hosts reliably.

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