What is lsb-core actually for?
 

While playing around, I used the lsb_release command and got the message "No lsb modules are available". Apparently you get this error if something called lsb_core is not installed. The suggested cure is to install it.

But why should it be installed? What does it actually do? Debian doesn't have it by default, which suggests that it isn't very important, and it comes with a string of dependencies as long as your arm. And according to Wikipedia, it requires an rpm-compliant packaging system, which is hardly something that I would expect in a Linux Standard Base specification as distinct from a Red Hat one.

Has anyone installed it, and what are the advantages, if any?

There was time when I was forced to install it in one of my desktops due to printer module requirement. Other concerns... well I did not find it really advantageous except that the aim of LSB is philosophically sound. You may read what the Linux Foundation say about it from here, in there is a link also about lsb.

Almost all of my machine don't have LSB. Slackware runs even from manual built programs.

Hope that helps.

m.m.

Thanks. That's a very useful link. But the whole thing seems to be directed at the enterprise market and at commercial software developers, not at desktop users or hobby programmers.