Bump distro images (ubuntu:22.04 -> ubuntu:24.04, fedora:40 -> fedora:41) in the system utils test workflow. Make package installation commands less quiet and more robust: clear /var/lib/apt/lists/* before apt-get update and remove -q flags from apt-get/dnf/yum installs so logs are more informative and apt updates won't fail on stale lists.
Set DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive to prevent interactive prompts during image package installs, add shell: bash for the Install step, and normalize command -v checks/redirection so package manager detection and installs behave more reliably. Also remove excessive suppression of apt-get update/install output to surface failures; the pip3 pytest install fallback remains unchanged.
Remove the inline "Verify expected package manager" step from the GitHub Actions workflow and add a pytest in backend/tests/test_utils_system_integration.py. The new test (test_matches_expected_manager_from_ci) reads EXPECTED_MANAGER from the environment, skips when not set, and asserts PackageManager.detect() matches the expected value. This consolidates the CI verification into the test suite and simplifies the workflow.
Introduce a new GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/test-system-utils.yml) that runs unit tests, distro-based integration tests in container images (ubuntu, debian, fedora, rocky) to validate package manager and systemctl detection, and an audit job that greps migrated service files for raw subprocess patterns. Add backend/tests/test_utils_system_integration.py: Linux-only integration smoke tests that directly import backend/app/utils/system.py (avoiding Flask deps) to verify PackageManager detection, command availability, and basic ServiceControl behavior. Designed for CI verification of system utilities across real distros.
Juan Denis