platform.linux_distribution from the python platform library returns (None, None, None)

I am trying to install hadoop on AWS clusters using the Red Hat Enterprise AMI using this tutorial but it give me this error when I try to install the ambari server onto the machine. I put in some print statements into the source code and found that platform.linux_distribution is returning (None,None, None) for some reason.

 Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/sbin/ambari-server.py", line 4237, in <module>
      main() 
   File "/usr/sbin/ambari-server.py", line 4056, in main
    setup(options)
   File "/usr/sbin/ambari-server.py", line 2090, in setup
    retcode = configure_os_settings()
   File "/usr/sbin/ambari-server.py", line 1910, in configure_os_settings
     os_name = os_info[0].lower()

Here is the relevant code in question:

 if os_system != 'Linux':
     print_error_msg ("Non-Linux systems are not supported")
     return -1

 os_info = platform.linux_distribution(None, None, None, ('SuSE', 'redhat'), 0)
 print os_info
 os_name = os_info[0].lower()