FS#64974 - [filesystem] Missing /etc/os-release symlink to/usr/lib/os-release file

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Musikolo (Musikolo) - Saturday, 28 December 2019, 22:51 GMT
Last edited by Antonio Rojas (arojas) - Saturday, 28 December 2019, 23:11 GMT
Task Type Support Request
Category Packages: Core
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Architecture All
Severity Very Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description: I've got 3 machines with Arch Linux. All of them have a symlink `/etc/os-release -> ../usr/lib/os-release` which is right, but, unexpectedly, it is no longer owned by the `filesystem` package or any other one.

The os-release manual recommends having such a symlink for backwards compatibility and it states the following:


```
The /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release files contain operating system identification data.

...

The file /etc/os-release takes precedence over /usr/lib/os-release. Applications should check for the former, and exclusively use its data if it exists, and only fall back to /usr/lib/os-release if it is missing. Applications should not read data from both files at the same time. /usr/lib/os-release is the recommended place to store OS release information as part of vendor trees. /etc/os-release should be a relative symlink to /usr/lib/os-release, to provide compatibility with applications only looking at /etc.
```

- More details at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/os-release.5.html

So my questions are:
- Has this changed recently?
- Would the same `/etc/os-release` symlink be created in a brand-system?

Asking to solve an open discussion at GitHub.

Thanks.

Steps to reproduce:

```
[musikolo@MyPC ~]$ ls -l /etc/os-release
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 sep 5 2017 /etc/os-release -> ../usr/lib/os-release
[musikolo@MyPC ~]$ ls -l /usr/lib/os-release
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 273 nov 13 10:23 /usr/lib/os-release

[musikolo@MyPC ~]$ pacman -Qo /etc/os-release
error: No package owns /etc/os-release
[musikolo@MyPC ~]$ pacman -Qo /usr/lib/os-release
/usr/lib/os-release is owned by filesystem 2019.10-2
```

This task depends upon

Closed by  Antonio Rojas (arojas)
Saturday, 28 December 2019, 23:11 GMT
Reason for closing:  Not a bug
Additional comments about closing:  Please use the forum or mailing list for this kind of question

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