From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: =?utf-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= Subject: Re: Eliminate environment variable hints? Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2019 22:56:21 +0100 Message-ID: <87h8cinw1m.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87a7iswyki.fsf@elephly.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:44384) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h0vZS-0008Vi-Pd for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:56:27 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h0vZR-00027e-Vl for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:56:26 -0500 Received: from hera.aquilenet.fr ([2a0c:e300::1]:56602) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1h0vZR-00023d-OJ for guix-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:56:25 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87a7iswyki.fsf@elephly.net> (Ricardo Wurmus's message of "Mon, 18 Feb 2019 22:56:13 +0100") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Ricardo Wurmus Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org Hello, Ricardo Wurmus skribis: > when installing a package into a profile Guix very helpfully tells you > that you may need to set certain environment variables. It doesn=E2=80= =99t tell > you that these environment variables can also be set by source=E2=80=99in= g the > generated etc/profile file. > > I have seen the bashrc and bash_profile files of many users and they are > usually full of conflicting environment variable definitions. In these > files I often also see these Guix recommendations. > > I think Guix should suggest sourcing the generated etc/profile file > instead of listing explicit environment variable definitions. It would > be less noisy and less confusing, in my opinion. > > What do you think? When (re)sourcing etc/profile, you might clutter some variables. For instance, if you do that several times, you can end up with: PATH=3D$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:$HOME/.guix-profile/bin:$HOME/.guix-profil= e/bin:=E2=80=A6 Conversely, the hint upon installation disappears if the entry is already present in the variable. That=E2=80=99s a fine point but I occasionally rely on this as a user. That said, I understand your concern. What about changing the message to: You might need to run: . =E2=80=A6/etc/profile Alternately, you can define the following environment variables: =E2=80=A6 Too verbose? Confusing? Thanks, Ludo=E2=80=99.