George Clemmer <myglc2@gmail.com> writes:

> What is GUIX_PROFILE is for?
>
>
> First question:
>
> If I log into a GuixSD vm-image w/ 1 package installed ...
>
> nemo:~ $ ssh g1@sysi34.local
> Last login: Fri Jun 22 08:24:11 2018 from fe80::1c82:5c21:6372:5970%eth0
> g1@sysi34 ~$ guix package -I
> znc       1.7.0   out
> /gnu/store/giv77vd376nkwpgl08fjfkq87b9mm8xj-znc-1.7.0
>
> ... GUIX_PROFILE is not in env ...
>
> env | grep GUIX GUIX_LOCPATH=/run/current-system/locale
>
> ... but echo reports it ...
>
> g1@sysi34 ~$ echo $GUIX_PROFILE
> /home/g1/.guix-profile
>
> That seems odd to me. What does it mean?
>
>
> Second question:
>
> If I set GUIX_PROFILE to something else, does it have any effect on what
> Guix does for me?

If GUIX_PROFILE is unset when sourcing the profile, the resulting
environment will refer to the generated profile (in the store) rather
than the "normal" location of the profile.

E.g.:

GUIX_PROFILE=/tmp/p1; source /tmp/p1/etc/profile
echo $PATH
/tmp/p1/bin

vs

unset GUIX_PROFILE; source /tmp/p1/etc/profile
echo $PATH
/gnu/store/...-profile/bin

In the first case, the resulting environment will always refer to the
latest generation of the profile; in the latter, the environment refers
to one particular profile generation.

This is explained in the top of the generated <profile>/etc/profile
script, but could perhaps use a mention in the manual.

Hope this clears things up :-)