Is installing `glibc-locales` necessary on GuixSD?

Is installing `glibc-locales` necessary on GuixSD?

[Ada Stevenson]

Hi Guix!

Congratulations to everyone who worked on the core-updates merge!

A lot of things have changed though, and I was curious about this new 
message I've been getting whenever I invoke `guix`.

> hint: Consider installing the `glibc-locales' package and defining `GUIX_LOCPATH', along these lines:
> 
>      guix install glibc-locales
>      export GUIX_LOCPATH="$HOME/.guix-profile/lib/locale"
> 
> See the "Application Setup" section in the manual, for more info.

I've looked at the section in the manual, and it essentially reiterates 
the message here. For me, this is strange. The benefit of using GuixSD 
is that stuff like this is handled for me - things like search paths and 
the like that need to be taken care of separately on a foreign 
distribution are pre-configured here.

I feel like this new locale change should be one of these things that is 
handled by GuixSD, somehow incorporated into `%base-packages` and the 
environment variables set in the default `.profile` script like the 
other Guix specific env-vars.

What do you all think?

Warmly,
Ada

Re: Is installing `glibc-locales` necessary on GuixSD?

[Ada Stevenson]

Hi Guix...

This is embarrassing. I sent this email before I actually reconfigured 
my system, and it seems like the message has gone away and the locales 
are working....... oops!

Please disregard this message!

On 01/09/2024 6:57 am, Ada Stevenson wrote:
> Hi Guix!
> 
> Congratulations to everyone who worked on the core-updates merge!
> 
> A lot of things have changed though, and I was curious about this new 
> message I've been getting whenever I invoke `guix`.
> 
>> hint: Consider installing the `glibc-locales' package and defining 
>> `GUIX_LOCPATH', along these lines:
>>
>>      guix install glibc-locales
>>      export GUIX_LOCPATH="$HOME/.guix-profile/lib/locale"
>>
>> See the "Application Setup" section in the manual, for more info.
> 
> I've looked at the section in the manual, and it essentially reiterates 
> the message here. For me, this is strange. The benefit of using GuixSD 
> is that stuff like this is handled for me - things like search paths and 
> the like that need to be taken care of separately on a foreign 
> distribution are pre-configured here.
> 
> I feel like this new locale change should be one of these things that is 
> handled by GuixSD, somehow incorporated into `%base-packages` and the 
> environment variables set in the default `.profile` script like the 
> other Guix specific env-vars.
> 
> What do you all think?
> 
> Warmly,
> Ada

Warmly,
Ada

Re: Is installing `glibc-locales` necessary on GuixSD?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Ada,

Ada Stevenson <adanskana@gmail.com> skribis:

> This is embarrassing. I sent this email before I actually reconfigured
> my system, and it seems like the message has gone away and the locales
> are working....... oops!

I missed this message before.  Indeed, once you’ve reconfigured,
/run/current-system/locale is, by default, populated with locale data
for both the old and the new version of glibc.  Thus, both “old”
binaries (linked against glibc 2.35) and new ones (linked against 2.39)
find compatible locale data.

See
<https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Locales.html#Locale-Data-Compatibility-Considerations>.

Cheers,
Ludo’.

Re: Is installing `glibc-locales` necessary on GuixSD?

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Ludovic,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Ada,
>
> Ada Stevenson <adanskana@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> This is embarrassing. I sent this email before I actually reconfigured
>> my system, and it seems like the message has gone away and the locales
>> are working....... oops!
>
> I missed this message before.  Indeed, once you’ve reconfigured,
> /run/current-system/locale is, by default, populated with locale data
> for both the old and the new version of glibc.  Thus, both “old”
> binaries (linked against glibc 2.35) and new ones (linked against 2.39)
> find compatible locale data.

I guess there should be some user guidance either documented or from the
CLI (using news items?) to tell users what to do when the glibc gets
updated:

1. First update your Guix System
2. *Then* update the package collection from your user profile

Doing it in reverse leads to problems such as reported in #74209
(locales-related breakage).

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim