Subject: bug#64509: Guile packages should install versioned aliases for binaries (guile-X.Y, guild-X.Y, etc.)

From: Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 09:37:49 +0200

Ludovic Courtès writes:

Hello!

> "Zack Weinberg" <[email-masked]> skribis:
>
>> The Guile packages currently install all their binaries under their
>> basic name only, e.g.
>>
>> $ ls /gnu/store/4gvgcfdiz67wv04ihqfa8pqwzsb0qpv5-guile-3.0.9/bin
>> /gnu/store/4gvgcfdiz67wv04ihqfa8pqwzsb0qpv5-guile-3.0.9/bin:
>> guild  guile  guile-config  guile-snarf  guile-tools
>>
>> However, the Autoconf macro GUILE_PROGS (from guile.m4) looks first
>> for a guile binary with a version number suffix (e.g. ‘guile-3.0’).
>> If it finds one, then it looks *only* for a matching guild-X.Y and
>> errors out if it can’t find that.  This is a problem for building Guix
>> itself from source in a non-pure ‘guix shell -D guix’ on top of a
>> foreign distro that provides a ‘guile-3.0’ binary but not the other
>> four programs:

It's an interesting idea.  It's a common source of problems for non-guix
system users.  It's terrible that guile.m4 has this feature of
preferring numbered binaries (even if they're later in PATH, and even if
that binary doesn't match GUILE_LOAD_*PATHs), and that Guix doesn't
provide them.

What about a wrapper package that provides these?

> I think the solution is to use ‘guix shell -D guix -CP’: that’ll give
> you a container, where /usr/bin/guile-3.0 isn’t accessible, which
> ensures there’s no interference.
>
> (FWIW this is what I do, even on Guix System, for my development
> environments.)

Hmm, yeah -- that sounds like the proper way of doing things.  Maybe my
pracice and advise should go into that direction instead.

Greetings,
Janneke

-- 
Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>  | GNU LilyPond https://LilyPond.org
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