Emacs EXWM requires restart after a Guix Home reconfigure

Emacs EXWM requires restart after a Guix Home reconfigure

[Fabio Natali]

Dear All,

I seem to be having a problem with my current Guix Home + Emacs + EXWM
setup.

Every time a new package is installed via a Guix Home reconfigure, EXWM
requires a restart for the new package to become available, i.e. visible
to Emacs. More details follow.

Setup:

- Guix Home to manage my user's environment
- Emacs EXWM as a window manager
- A single Emacs daemon + multiple emacsclient instances

Steps to reproduce the problem:

- Add a new Emacs package to a Guix Home declaration =config.scm=
- Run =guix home reconfigure config.scm=
- The new package is not available and can't be loaded in Emacs
- Run =M-x guix-emacs-autoload-packages=
- The new package is still not available

The package is normally visible from a new Emacs instance (new server)
or if restarting the primary Emacs server (and hence restarting EXWM,
which is inconvenient).

Is there anything obvious that I'm missing or doing wrong? Can anyone
indicate a solution or perhaps something that could mitigate the issue
and avoid the restart?

Thanks, best wishes, Fabio.

Re: Emacs EXWM requires restart after a Guix Home reconfigure

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Fabio,

Fabio Natali <me@fabionatali.com> writes:

> Dear All,
>
> I seem to be having a problem with my current Guix Home + Emacs + EXWM
> setup.
>
> Every time a new package is installed via a Guix Home reconfigure, EXWM
> requires a restart for the new package to become available, i.e. visible
> to Emacs. More details follow.
>
> Setup:
>
> - Guix Home to manage my user's environment
> - Emacs EXWM as a window manager
> - A single Emacs daemon + multiple emacsclient instances
>
> Steps to reproduce the problem:
>
> - Add a new Emacs package to a Guix Home declaration =config.scm=
> - Run =guix home reconfigure config.scm=
> - The new package is not available and can't be loaded in Emacs
> - Run =M-x guix-emacs-autoload-packages=
> - The new package is still not available

I think there's nothing special about 'guix home' or ExWM here; it
happens with any Emacs package installation; Emacs must be restarted
completely (M-x guix-emacs-autoload-packages doesn't suffice).  It's a
regression that was introduced with the move to use
subdirectories/subdirs files for the Emacs package installation layout,
in 79cfe30f3eb10bd3dbf7aa0f6e873c945d7d0ea5 ("build-system: emacs: Use
subdirectories again."), if memory serves.

We should open a bug about that and see if we can come up with a fix!

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim

Re: Emacs EXWM requires restart after a Guix Home reconfigure

[Fabio Natali]

On 2023-04-17, 14:08 -0400, Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think there's nothing special about 'guix home' or ExWM here; it
> happens with any Emacs package installation; Emacs must be restarted
> completely (M-x guix-emacs-autoload-packages doesn't suffice).  It's a
> regression that was introduced with the move to use
> subdirectories/subdirs files for the Emacs package installation
> layout, in 79cfe30f3eb10bd3dbf7aa0f6e873c945d7d0ea5 ("build-system:
> emacs: Use subdirectories again."), if memory serves.

Hi Maxim, many thanks for getting back to me!

Yeah, I think you're right re this not being related to Guix Home and
EXWM. (Although EXWM has made things worse for me, as restarting the
Emacs server now means restarting X, basically.)

> We should open a bug about that and see if we can come up with a fix!

Ok cool, I'll open a bug report then (with no mention of EXWM and Guix
Home), if that's alright.

Cheers, Fabio.