diff -r 247f12fecf2b Doc/library/platform.rst
--- a/Doc/library/platform.rst	Sun Jan 05 12:00:31 2014 -0800
+++ b/Doc/library/platform.rst	Tue Jan 07 10:59:57 2014 +0800
@@ -249,6 +249,11 @@
 
 .. function:: linux_distribution(distname='', version='', id='', supported_dists=('SuSE','debian','redhat','mandrake',...), full_distribution_name=1)
 
+   .. deprecated:: 3.5
+      This function will be deprecated in Python 3.5 and removed in Python 3.6.
+      The linux distributions use too many different ways of describing
+      themselves, so the functionality is left to a package.
+
    Tries to determine the name of the Linux OS distribution name.
 
    ``supported_dists`` may be given to define the set of Linux distributions to
diff -r 247f12fecf2b Lib/platform.py
--- a/Lib/platform.py	Sun Jan 05 12:00:31 2014 -0800
+++ b/Lib/platform.py	Tue Jan 07 10:59:57 2014 +0800
@@ -113,6 +113,7 @@
 
 import collections
 import sys, os, re, subprocess
+from warnings import warn
 
 ### Globals & Constants
 
@@ -318,6 +319,8 @@
         args given as parameters.
 
     """
+    warn("The dist()/linux_distribution() function will be deprecated in "
+         "Python 3.5 and removed in Python 3.6", PendingDeprecationWarning, 2)
     try:
         etc = os.listdir(_UNIXCONFDIR)
     except OSError:
@@ -372,8 +375,7 @@
 
     """ Portable popen() interface.
     """
-    import warnings
-    warnings.warn('use os.popen instead', DeprecationWarning, stacklevel=2)
+    warn('use os.popen instead', DeprecationWarning, stacklevel=2)
     return os.popen(cmd, mode, bufsize)
 
 def _norm_version(version, build=''):