It seems that this issue is not caused by any behavior of LyX, since merely adding LyX to a profile breaks the existing texlive installation: ======================================================================== ~/tmp$ cat test.tex \documentclass[a4paper]{article} \usepackage{url} \begin{document} \end{document} ~/tmp$ guix environment --pure --ad-hoc texlive -- pdflatex test.tex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019) (preloaded format=pdflatex) restricted \write18 enabled. entering extended mode (./test.tex LaTeX2e <2018-12-01> (/gnu/store/wyp70a5a4spmj1g2wvm27d5968sssvwq-texlive-texmf-20190410/share/texmf -dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls Document Class: article 2018/09/03 v1.4i Standard LaTeX document class (/gnu/store/wyp70a5a4spmj1g2wvm27d5968sssvwq-texlive-texmf-20190410/share/texmf -dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) (/gnu/store/wyp70a5a4spmj1g2wvm27d5968sssvwq-texlive-texmf-20190410/share/texmf -dist/tex/latex/url/url.sty) No file test.aux. (./test.aux) ) No pages of output. Transcript written on test.log. ~/tmp$ guix environment --pure --ad-hoc texlive lyx -- pdflatex test.tex This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019) (preloaded format=pdflatex) restricted \write18 enabled. entering extended mode (./test.tex LaTeX2e <2018-12-01> (/gnu/store/xq0b0mgz5h6invz9fh13n29mb2jfdb0s-texlive-union-51265/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls Document Class: article 2018/09/03 v1.4i Standard LaTeX document class (/gnu/store/xq0b0mgz5h6invz9fh13n29mb2jfdb0s-texlive-union-51265/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo)) ! LaTeX Error: File `url.sty' not found. Type X to quit or to proceed, or enter new name. (Default extension: sty) Enter file name: ======================================================================== Regards, Jakub Kądziołka