Subject: bug#30728: guix-install.sh doesn't work if run with "sudo"

From: Ricardo Wurmus <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:07:50 +0200

Hi Clément,

> I am surprised that you didn't comment on
> https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=30728#32 (where I explain
> to you why I disagree with Guix being installed in ~root) before saying
> LGTM.

Don’t be surprised: there are too many emails and I’m bound to forget
about some.  My apologies for not repyling to your email earlier.

I read your mail but I disagree with the conclusions.  It is not the job
of the installer script to install Guix for a particular user.  It is
for a site-wide installation, including the set up of the daemon and a
service script.  These things must happen as root.  The idea is that
Guix is installed for the whole site and made available to all users.

Individual users can then choose to use “guix pull” to control their own
version of Guix.

I consider it inelegant and dangerous to make the Guix installation of
an unprivileged user the variant of Guix that is used by all users on
the system.  Having it managed by the root user avoids surprises, even
on single-user systems, because the implication is that changes to the
root user’s Guix installation have system-wide effects.

The proposed patch is small and fixes the bug with regard to the
intention behind the script, so I’m happy to accept it.

--
Ricardo

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