Bug#485558: update-manager: dies when lsb_release -i returns empty distributor

[David Ayers]

Package: update-manager
Version: 0.42.2ubuntu22-15
Severity: normal

I haven't been able to startup update-manager for a while I decided to finally investigate a bit.
When starting from the command line I get:

ayers at schiefer:~$ gksudo update-manager 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/update-manager", line 70, in <module>
    app = UpdateManager(data_dir)
  File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/UpdateManager/UpdateManager.py", line 261, in __init__
    dinfo = DistInfo (base_dir=datadir+"channels/")
  File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/UpdateManager/Common/DistInfo.py", line 58, in __init__
    dist_file = open (dist_fname)
IOError: [Errno 2] Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden: '/usr/share/update-manager/channels//.info'

So I checked the source on where this failed:

...
        if not dist:
            pipe = os.popen("lsb_release -i | cut -d : -f 2-")
            dist = pipe.read().strip()
            pipe.close()
            del pipe
...
        dist_fname = "%s/%s.info" % (base_dir, dist)
        dist_file = open (dist_fname)
...

Then I checked lsb_release:

ayers at schiefer:~$ lsb_release -i
Distributor ID:	  
ayers at schiefer:~$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version:	  core-2.0-ia32:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-ia32:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-ia32:core-3.2-noarch:cxx-3.0-ia32:cxx-3.0-noarch:cxx-3.1-ia32:cxx-3.1-noarch:cxx-3.2-ia32:cxx-3.2-noarch:desktop-3.1-ia32:desktop-3.1-noarch:desktop-3.2-ia32:desktop-3.2-noarch:graphics-2.0-ia32:graphics-2.0-noarch:graphics-3.0-ia32:graphics-3.0-noarch:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.2-ia32:graphics-3.2-noarch:qt4-3.1-ia32:qt4-3.1-noarch
Distributor ID:	  
Description:	  Debian GNU/Linux testing (lenny)
Release:	  testing
Codename:	  lenny

So it /seems/ to actually be a bug in lsb_release but I think it would be great if update-manager could gracefully handle the error.
(i.e. inform the user that the file it is searching for doesn't exist and it is exiting, especially if update-manager is started from a panel.)

Cheers,
David

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=de_AT.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_AT.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages update-manager depends on:
ii  libgnome2-perl                1.042-1+b1 Perl interface to the GNOME librar
ii  lsb-release                   3.2-11     Linux Standard Base version report
ii  python                        2.5.2-1    An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-apt                    0.7.5      Python interface to libapt-pkg
ii  python-glade2                 2.12.1-1   GTK+ bindings: Glade support
ii  python-gnome2                 2.22.0-1   Python bindings for the GNOME desk
ii  python-gnupginterface         0.3.2-9    Python interface to GnuPG (GPG)
ii  python-support                0.7.7      automated rebuilding support for P
ii  synaptic                      0.62       Graphical package manager

update-manager recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information