bug#48796: Guix on Debian 11 - Cant run or find applications from Guix

[Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com>]

Hello,

bo0od <bo0od@riseup.net> writes:

> Hi There,
>
> I have installed Guix package manager over debian bullseye 11 then i
> installed a package using guix (after running guix pull) with two
> ways: (x package i tried is icecat)
>
> guix install x
>
> sudo -i guix install x
>
> both of the commands worked but the x package has no icon nor i can
> run it using terminal.

There are two things that Guix does to help users correctly configure
their system so that Guix installed applications appear on PATH.

1. The guix-install.sh installation script installs a
/etc/profile.d/guix.sh script that configures the PATH when logging in:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
# cat /etc/profile.d/guix.sh 
# _GUIX_PROFILE: `guix pull` profile
_GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.config/guix/current"
export PATH="$_GUIX_PROFILE/bin${PATH:+:}$PATH"
# Export INFOPATH so that the updated info pages can be found
# and read by both /usr/bin/info and/or $GUIX_PROFILE/bin/info
# When INFOPATH is unset, add a trailing colon so that Emacs
# searches 'Info-default-directory-list'.
export INFOPATH="$_GUIX_PROFILE/share/info:$INFOPATH"

# GUIX_PROFILE: User's default profile
GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile"
[ -L $GUIX_PROFILE ] || return
GUIX_LOCPATH="$GUIX_PROFILE/lib/locale"
export GUIX_LOCPATH

[ -f "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile" ] && . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

# set XDG_DATA_DIRS to include Guix installations
export XDG_DATA_DIRS="$GUIX_PROFILE/share:${XDG_DATA_DIRS:-/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/}"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

It even set XDG_DATA_DIRS, which should allow integration with the GNOME
Shell and other graphical dashboards.

I suspect you didn't install Guix via this script?  If so, could you try
creating the above file, closing relogin in your graphical session and
report if it fixed things for you?

Perhaps we should more strongly recommend using this installation script
and/or augment the manual installation procedure to cover for the above
configuration.

A second thing that Guix does to help users configure their environ Guix
is to hinted at sourcing the profile, if the user ~/.guix-profile/bin
was not already in PATH, like so:


--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
# env PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin guix install zile
guix install: warning: Consider running 'guix pull' followed by
'guix package -u' to get up-to-date packages and security updates.

The following package will be installed:
   zile 2.4.15

substitute: updating substitutes from 'https://ci.guix.gnu.org'... 100.0%
The following derivation will be built:
   /gnu/store/015zpn0xl8fn2ff1l0vf69w127frp76a-profile.drv

0.1 MB will be downloaded
 zile-2.4.15  108KiB                                             97KiB/s 00:01 [##################] 100.0%
building CA certificate bundle...
building fonts directory...
building directory of Info manuals...
building database for manual pages...
building profile with 6 packages...
hint: Consider setting the necessary environment variables by running:

     GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.guix-profile"
     . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

Alternately, see `guix package --search-paths -p "/root/.guix-profile"'.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Didn't you see this on your terminal after installing the Guix
applications?

Thanks,

Maxim