lsbrelease

lsbrelease is a commonly used misnom for the Linux command lsb_release, a utility that reports information about the Linux distribution in a standardized format. The canonical executable is lsb_release; lsbrelease is not the standard spelling, but it may appear in informal references or documentation. The tool is associated with the Linux Standard Base (LSB) specifications, which aimed to provide a common set of interfaces and metadata for Linux distributions, though current adoption varies.

The primary purpose of lsb_release is to identify the distribution in a consistent way. It reports fields such as Distributor ID, Description, Release, and Codename. The command gathers information from system files like /etc/os-release and /etc/lsb-release when available, and may use additional sources as needed to populate its output. This makes it useful for shell scripts, installers, and documentation that need to adapt to different environments.

Common usage includes commands such as lsb_release -a to display all information, lsb_release -i for the distributor, -d for the description, -r for the release number, and -c for the codename. Example output might look like: Distributor ID: Ubuntu; Description: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS; Release: 22.04; Codename: jammy.

Availability and limitations vary by distribution. Some modern distributions have reduced or deprecated LSB metadata support, favoring files like /etc/os-release for release information. As a result, lsb_release may rely on the OS release files or may provide limited data on certain systems. The LSB project has seen declining activity, and while lsb_release remains widely used in scripts and documentation, many environments increasingly depend on distro-specific metadata. See also os-release, /etc/os-release, and Linux Standard Base.