Re: gnu-build-system should set DESTDIR

[Ludovic Courtès]

John Darrington <address@hidden> skribis:

> I think the make install target in gnu-build-system should set DESTDIR to "/" 
> (or "/.")
> Rationale:
>
> Many upstream makefiles (eg: 
>
> https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-themes-standard/tree/themes/HighContrast/icons/Makefile.am)
>  

We’re talking about GNOME makefiles only, I think.  The snippet below is
clearly a hack IMO.

> assume that when DESTDIR is unset (or is "") then the package is being 
> installed in a "live" system:
>
> if test -z "$(DESTDIR)"; then \
>               echo "Updating Gtk icon cache."; \
>               $(gtk_update_icon_cache); \
> else \
>               echo "*** Icon cache not updated.  After (un)install, run 
> this:"; \
>               echo "***   $(gtk_update_icon_cache)"; \
> fi
>
> I have noticed that a number of packages in /nix/store/ have their own 
> version 
> of icon-theme.cache leading to warnings when doing guix package --install
>
> So we need to set DESTDIR to *something* and to arrange for some kind of 
> post-install hook to update
> the cache.  The same goes for top level info nodes.

What about this: we add a GNOME build system doing a few things, such as
handling schemas [0] and setting DESTDIR if that’s a common idiom.

WDYT?

The post-install hook is definitely on the to-do list, but it needs a
bit of thought.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

[0] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2013-10/msg00171.html