How to set global environment variables in Guix System

How to set global environment variables in Guix System

[Lo Peter]

Dear All,

I am trying to setup ibus-rime for Chinese input in guix system 1.2.0,
after a lot of googling and trial and error, I found that I cannot set
the needed environment variables:

export GTK_IM_MODULE="ibus"
export QT_IM_MODULE="ibus"
export XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus"

I have tried putting them in ~/.profile, ~/.pam_environment, ~/.xprofile
and it seems they have no effects.

If I am not mistaken, guix system now uses gdm as display manager, but
I also cannot find a way to set environment variable for gdm sessions.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Also, I think a way to let user
customize /etc/environment through the system config will be useful,
but I do not find a way to do so.

Thanks.

Regards,
Peter

Re: How to set global environment variables in Guix System

[Michael Rohleder]

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Lo Peter <peterloleungyau@gmail.com> writes:
> Any help is greatly appreciated. Also, I think a way to let user
> customize /etc/environment through the system config will be useful,
> but I do not find a way to do so.

Try adding something like this to your system services:

(simple-service 'my-ibus-ch-env session-environment-service-type
                  '(("GTK_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")
                    ("QT_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")))
                    
-- 
Das Lernen vieler Dinge lehrt nicht Verständnis.
     Heraklit, B40

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Re: How to set global environment variables in Guix System

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via]

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Michael Rohleder 写道：
> (simple-service 'my-ibus-ch-env session-environment-service-type
>                   '(("GTK_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")
>                     ("QT_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")))

...much simpler.  Thanks!

Kind regards,

T G-R

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Re: How to set global environment variables in Guix System

[Lo Peter]

Thanks both for the replies.
If I understand correctly, custom environment variables could be added
through some kind of session-environment-service-type, I will try it
out to learn more.
Just for the record, I currently use a custom ~/.xsession script as a
hack to source ~/.xprofile to set the needed environment variables and
also start ibus-daemon, because I really only need i3 (and xfce as a
fallback).

Thanks.

Regards,
Peter

On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 10:39 PM Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr> wrote:
>
> Michael Rohleder 写道：
> > (simple-service 'my-ibus-ch-env session-environment-service-type
> >                   '(("GTK_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")
> >                     ("QT_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")))
>
> ...much simpler.  Thanks!
>
> Kind regards,
>
> T G-R

Re: How to set global environment variables in Guix System

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice]

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Peter!

Lo Peter 写道：
> ~/.pam_environment

I don't think we configure PAM to look at this by default.  I'm 
not sure why GDM doesn't load ~/.profile (it may be right not to 
-- most of these files are abused).  I'd never heard of 
~/.xprofile.

> Any help is greatly appreciated. Also, I think a way to let user
> customize /etc/environment through the system config will be 
> useful,
> but I do not find a way to do so.

That already exists, but it seems to be wholly undocumented(?). 
Boo.

Also, IIRC blindly plonking

  (session-environment-service-type '(("FOO" . "bar")))

into your services would only get you the ‘duplicate service’ 
error.  It's meant to be extended.

First, define this in your system.scm (above your 
operating-system):

  (define environment-service-type
    (service-type (name 'environment)
                  (default-value '())
                  (extensions
                   (list (service-extension
                          session-environment-service-type
                          identity)))))

Then use it in your services field:

  (service environment-service-type
           '(("GTK_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")
             ("QT_IM_MODULE" . "ibus")
             ...))

I hope that helps,

T G-R

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