bug#26202: Guix in foreign distributions: setting XDG_DATA_DIRS causes user session to not start

bug#26202: Guix in foreign distributions: setting XDG_DATA_DIRS causes user session to not start

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

* Steps to reproduce

1. Edit "~/.profile" and add:

export GUIX_PROFILE="${HOME}/.guix-profile"
export XDG_DATA_DIRS="${GUIX_PROFILE}/share${XDG_DATA_DIRS:+:}$XDG_DATA_DIRS"

2. Log out and try to log in again.

* Current behavior

The *host's* GNOME Flashback session (gnome-session
--session=gnome-flashback) attempts to start, however, it's aborted
shortly after successful log-in.

"~/.xsession-errors" file shows something similar to:

# Begin of file
gnome-session: GLib-GIO-ERROR: Settings schema
'org.gnome.SessionManager' is not installed.

aborting...
# End of file

* Additional information

- In this case, I'm using Trisquel 7.
- `gnome-session` command is provided by the
  "gnome-session-bin", version 3.9.90-0ubuntu12.1+7.0trisquel2.
- Display manager is lightdm (Trisquel 7's default), version
  1.10.6-0ubuntu1+7.0trisquel1.
- Being a "~/.profile" setting, the problem is not found unless the user
- logs-out and back in.

* Personal comment

This might become a problem if Guix starts suggesting people to
customize $XDG_DATA_DIRS in their "~/.profile".


Respectfully, Adonay.
-- 
- [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno]]
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- "People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the
  world."
                                                 --- Richard Stallman

bug#26202: Guix in foreign distributions: setting XDG_DATA_DIRS causes user session to not start

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

It turns out that the XDG_DATA_DIRS bug is due to foreign distributions
using some Xsession.d scripts that do tests to check if that variable is
empty, and if it does exist, then they do nothing. This causes the
system to simply not set XDG_DATA_DIRS to useful values for foreign
distributions, thus leaving the user with a never-ending log-in loop.

So what must the user do?

1. Test without setting XDG_DATA_DIRS, and take note of its value.

2. Set XDG_DATA_DIRS as Guix tells you to, however, replace the
following part:

${XDG_DATA_DIRS:+:}$XDG_DATA_DIRS

With the following:

:[Value that you took note of, without this surrounding braces.]

I hope this helps. :)


Respectfully, Adonay.
-- 
- [[https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno]]
- Palestrante e consultor sobre /software/ livre (não confundir com
  gratis).
- "WhatsApp"? Ele não é livre, por isso não uso. Iguais a ele prefiro
  Ring, ou Tox. Quer outras formas de contato? Adicione o vCard que
  está no endereço acima aos teus contatos.
- Pretende me enviar arquivos .doc, .ppt, .cdr, ou .mp3? OK, eu
  aceito, mas não repasso. Entrego apenas em formatos favoráveis ao
  /software/ livre. Favor entrar em contato em caso de dúvida.
- "People said I should accept the world. Bullshit! I don't accept the
  world."
                                                 --- Richard Stallman

bug#26202: XDG_DATA_DIRS issue on foreign distro

[zimoun]

Dear,

In this old bug [1], you described an issue using ~/.profile,
XDG_DATA_DIRS and GNOME on the foreign distro Trisquel 7.

I am not able to reproduce the issue on Debian.

Because it is old, could you say if this bug is still an issue? or if
it is now solved for you.

Best regards,
simon


[1] http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/26202

bug#26202: XDG_DATA_DIRS issue on foreign distro

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> In this old bug [1], you described an issue using ~/.profile,
> XDG_DATA_DIRS and GNOME on the foreign distro Trisquel 7.
>
> I am not able to reproduce the issue on Debian.

Interesting.

> Because it is old, could you say if this bug is still an issue? or if
> it is now solved for you.

I cannot answer for the OP, but bug 35308, which may be related, is
still acute.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

bug#26202: XDG_DATA_DIRS issue on foreign distro

[zimoun]

Hi Nicolas,

On Thu, 14 May 2020 at 19:32, Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:

> Interesting.

The Gnome that I use for testing is the Gnome from Debian.  The
initial bug report was about Trisquel/Ubuntu.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
- In this case, I'm using Trisquel 7.
- `gnome-session` command is provided by the
  "gnome-session-bin", version 3.9.90-0ubuntu12.1+7.0trisquel2.
- Display manager is lightdm (Trisquel 7's default), version
  1.10.6-0ubuntu1+7.0trisquel1.
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


> I cannot answer for the OP, but bug 35308, which may be related, is
> still acute.

I am not able to say if the bug is only related and could be merged.


All the best,
simon

bug#26202: XDG_DATA_DIRS issue on foreign distro

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> The Gnome that I use for testing is the Gnome from Debian.  The
> initial bug report was about Trisquel/Ubuntu.

[...]

> I am not able to say if the bug is only related and could be merged.

OK. Sorry for the noise, then.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou

bug#26202: Guix in foreign distributions: setting XDG_DATA_DIRS causes user session to not start

[Ryan Prior via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

I can reproduce this bug in elemantary OS 5.1.4 with Guix
fbfaafae27893f74f47188ecd0bce54df38981bd

Ryan

bug#26202: Guix in foreign distributions: setting XDG_DATA_DIRS causes user session to not start

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi,

zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Nicolas,
>
> On Thu, 14 May 2020 at 19:32, Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> wrote:
>
>> Interesting.
>
> The Gnome that I use for testing is the Gnome from Debian.  The
> initial bug report was about Trisquel/Ubuntu.
>
> - In this case, I'm using Trisquel 7.
> - `gnome-session` command is provided by the
>   "gnome-session-bin", version 3.9.90-0ubuntu12.1+7.0trisquel2.
> - Display manager is lightdm (Trisquel 7's default), version
>   1.10.6-0ubuntu1+7.0trisquel1.

I'm confident that this got resolved with
30810aff713149d53cb25f36ae6d721ec66385da and
7ff169d04f52b15393b33a97959e2cd6a5957e26 of guix-install.sh.

Closing!

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim