Summary

check-errors egg installation in GuixSD

Metadata

Description

On the operating system GuixSD, packages are installed each to their own isolated directory in a store rather than to global system directories like in most GNU/Linux distros. The store directories are read-only, so occasionally present unique challenges for packaging software.

On a GuixSD system, when I install the check-errors egg, the following error and warning is produced:

 cp: cannot create regular file '/gnu/store/<HASH>-chicken-4.11.0/share/chicken/inline-type-checks.scm': Read-only file system
 
 Warning: cannot copy to Chicken Home: must use CHICKEN_INCLUDE_PATH when using "inline-type-checks"

The check-errors egg uses setup-helper, and a call to `install-in-home` is the source of this warning.

I really don't know the reason for this file needing to be in the chicken installation directory (check-errors is just a dependency of a dependency of a program I'm interested in) but it is a bit surprising to me that an egg needs to write to the chicken installation directory, so I wanted to note this use case here, and suggest that maybe other designs be considered to make check-errors more portable.

Changes and comments

[2016-08-27 20:54:20 UTC] retroj changed status from new to closed

[2016-08-27 20:54:20 UTC] retroj set resolution to invalid

[2016-08-27 20:54:20 UTC] retroj wrote:

Nevermind, I misunderstood what was happening here.