Subject: bug#76924: 31.0.50; Wrong install location for systemd user unit file

From: Ulrich Müller <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 14:15:23 +0100

>>>>> On Wed, 12 Mar 2025, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> Is there no way of knowing what is systemd's idea of prefix?

I think that for the majority of installations it would be prefix=/usr.

> If not, I guess a configure option will have to do, but the question
> of the default still stands, no?

Presumably the most common use cases will be:

- Distros building an Emacs package. These should make sure that prefix
  is the same for all their packages. So, installing in $(prefix)/lib
  will be The Right Thing and no option is needed.

- Users compiling Emacs from the release tarball or from Git. For these
  we don't really know what the prefix is, it could be /usr/local or
  some location under their home dir. I believe an option would be
  useful here.

  Not entirely sure about the default, but I'd go with $(prefix)/lib
  also for this case, because: a) /usr/local/lib is in systemd's search
  path, which covers one of the more common cases, and b) hardcoded
  /usr/lib (systemd's prefix) may not be writable for the user.