Bring Homebrew_packages to linux

Feature request

What new feature do you want?

Extend the existing homebrew_packages table to support Linux installations of Homebrew (Linuxbrew).

The homebrew_packages table is currently available on macOS and provides a convenient way to inventory packages installed through Homebrew. Homebrew is also supported on Linux, but osquery does not currently expose the equivalent package information through this table on Linux.

Ideally, the existing homebrew_packages table would be made available on Linux rather than introducing a separate Linux-specific table, as the underlying package-management model and desired inventory data are the same.

How is this new feature useful?

Homebrew is increasingly used as a cross-platform package manager, particularly in engineering and development environments where organisations manage both macOS and Linux endpoints.

For organisations using osquery for software inventory, the current platform limitation creates an inconsistent view of Homebrew-managed software. A query such as:

SELECT * FROM homebrew_packages;

can be used to inventory Homebrew packages on macOS, but the same inventory cannot be collected from Linux systems using the equivalent table.

Adding Linux support would provide a consistent cross-platform interface for identifying Homebrew-managed packages and would make it easier to:

maintain a common software-inventory query across macOS and Linux; identify packages installed outside the operating system's native package manager; perform vulnerability and software-compliance analysis against Homebrew packages; identify unmanaged or unexpected developer tooling; and avoid maintaining custom extensions or scripts solely to collect equivalent Linuxbrew data.

How can this be implemented?

Homebrew's default Linux installation prefix is typically:

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew

However, Homebrew can be installed under other prefixes, so implementation should ideally avoid assuming that this path is universal.

If feasible, Linux support should preserve the existing homebrew_packages schema and semantics so that queries consuming the table do not need platform-specific handling.