def METHOD_NAME(path: Text) -> Text:
  """Linux uses a normal path.
  We always want to encode as UTF-8 here. If the environment for the
  client is broken, Python might assume an ASCII based filesystem
  (those should be rare nowadays) and things will go wrong if we let
  Python decide what to do. If the filesystem actually is ASCII,
  encoding and decoding will not change anything so things will still
  work as expected.
  Args:
    path: the canonical path as an Unicode string
  Returns:
    A unicode string.
  """
  precondition.AssertType(path, Text)
  return utils.NormalizePath(path)