Subject: bug#42434: Shell can't find basic system tools after massive garbage collection

From: Alexandru-Sergiu Marton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2020 23:09:09 +0300

Hi,

I run Guix System on my laptop and I wanted to free some space so I ran
all the cleaning stuff I could think of:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
guix package --delete-generations
guix gc --delete-generations
sudo guix system delete-generations
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

After running them all, I had troubles using some of the most basic
tools, like ls or rm. Other programs seemed fine (make, gcc, guix) as I
could compile my builds of dwm and st.

After I ran `guix system reconfigure` and I made sure my profile
contains all the software I need at the latest version by running `guix
package -m` on my manifest, everything went back to normal -- I could
use ls and rm again.

Sadly, I didn't gather more information as I didn't experiment much with
the broken system because I freaked out and tried to fix it as fast as
possible.

I don't know what to make of this. Brett Gilio suggested it may have
been a bad symlink job.

Cheers,
Sergiu