platform.linux_distribution(distname='', version='', id='', supported_dists=('SuSE', 'debian', 'redhat', 'mandrake', ...), full_distribution_name=1)
Tries to determine the name of the Linux OS distribution name.
supported_dists may be given to define the set of Linux distributions to look for. It defaults to a list of currently supported Linux distributions identified by their release file name.
If full_distribution_name is true (default), the full distribution read from the OS is returned. Otherwise the short name taken from supported_dists is used.
Returns a tuple (distname,version,id) which defaults to the args given as parameters. id is the item in parentheses after the version number. It is usually the version codename.
Deprecated since version 3.5, will be removed in version 3.7.
https://github.com/nexB/scancode-plugins/blob/4df0cf04e1b7b6774ba6e983c7c57002f19327c9/builtins/typecode_libmagic_system_provided/src/typecode_libmagic/__init__.py#L43