Re: [Python-Dev] Hey! who changed sys.platform?!

Greg Ward writes:

But, consider that that the Distutils might want to know if it should generate RPMs or Debian packages... then the stuff about grokking which Linux distribution it's running on is relevant. Argh!

Why would you need to figure this out? Are you selecting a platform-specific packaging system automatically? In that case, I'd search for the presence of the tools rather than asking what sort of distribution you're running on -- several distros use RPM, a few use .deb packages, etc. When the user specifies one on the command line, just use the one they name and be done with it.

-Fred