lsb_release: command not found in latest Ubuntu Docker container

Question

I just wanted to test something out real quick. So I ran a docker container and I wanted to check which version I was running:

$ docker run -it ubuntu    
root@471bdb08b11a:/# lsb_release -a
bash: lsb_release: command not found
root@471bdb08b11a:/# 

So I tried installing it (as suggested here):

root@471bdb08b11a:/# apt install lsb_release
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package lsb_release
root@471bdb08b11a:/# 

Anybody any idea why this isn't working?

Solution 1

It seems lsb_release is not installed.

you can install it via

apt-get update && apt-get install -y lsb-release && apt-get clean all

Hope that helps ;)

Solution 2

This error can happen due to uninstalling or upgrading the default python3 program version in ubuntu 16.04

The way to correct this is by reinstalling the original python3 version which comes with ubuntu and relinking again. (in ubuntu 16.04 - the default python3 version is python 3.5

sudo rm /usr/bin/python3
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3.5 /usr/bin/python3

Comments

[CodeMouse92]

I only needed to install the package lsb-release. lsb-core works too, but it brings in a whole bunch of dependencies I don't need.

[Alexander Christov]

This is why I love Linux - black magic resulting in several screens of output just to see OS version!

[smac89]

@AlexanderChristov you can just run uname --all for kernel version or cat /etc/os-release for distribution info, if you don't want to do it the recommended way

[RubenLaguna]

I guess is worth noting that the command is lsb_release (with underscore) but the package to install is lsb-release (with hyphen)

[DeadlyChambers]

I'd be careful messing with the potential symlinks in /usr/bin/python3. You really should be using sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.5 35 #or whatever priority. That being said, mine is there, but the shebang is for python, not python3