Re: guix environment

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> skribis:

> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 09:59:46AM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> >> > $GEM_HOME
>> >> 
>> >> This one doesn't make sense because it specifies where gems are to be
>> >> installed.  Store items are immutable, so one cannot install gems into
>> >> them.
>> >
>> > We still provide the gem tool ;). If we set this value to something
>> > sensible (relative to $HOME) people can still use gems. The current
>> > default setting is not good because it does not provide isolation.
>> 
>> I don’t know Ruby, but this seems to be a variable that the *user* must
>> set, regardless of whether they use Guix or not, no?
>
> The current default points inside the Guix store. Which is (and should
> be) read-only
>
>     - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /gnu/store/c13v73jxmj2nir2xjqaz5259zywsa9zi-ruby-2.1.6/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0
>
> On Debian it is
>
>     - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /var/lib/gems/1.9.1
>
> (so, by default, you need sudo to run gem)
>
> My proposal is to have it user based and isolated, e.g.,
>
>     - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: $HOME/.gem/c13v73jxmj2nir2xjqaz5259zywsa9zi-ruby-2.1.6/2.1.0

I suppose this would require patching Ruby, but why not.

Another option would be to do like Debian, which is presumably what
upstream intended, and which boils down to configuring Ruby with
--localstatedir=/var or similar.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.