Hi Daniel, We also implemented the proposed change in Ubuntu Resolute, but according to an Ubuntu user[0], this breaks comment parsing in /etc/environment.
I know you mentioned that "/etc/environment does not contain any form of quoting or escaping, nor can it contain comments" earlier in this thread. However, is there a source for this? I was trying to find a clear answer on the format specification, and all I can find is this freedesktop spec[1], which seems to suggest the opposite: > Empty lines and lines beginning with the comment character "#" are ignored. Is there some conflicting specification that states that we shouldn't ignore lines beginning with "#"? [0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/texinfo/+bug/2125808/comments/8 [1] https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/environment.d.html#Configuration%20Format Thanks, Mitchell Augustin On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 3:43 PM Mitchell Augustin < [email protected]> wrote: > I submitted an MR to > https://salsa.debian.org/tex-team/texinfo/-/merge_requests/13 with the > solution proposed in this thread. > > > On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 9:07 AM Mitchell Augustin > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > could you provide your /etc/environments file? > > > > I'm not Daniel, but if you just need a reproducer for the issue with > > sourcing, a minimal repro is to add an unquoted variable with > > semicolons in your /etc/environments, such as this: > > root@envtest:~# cat /etc/environment > > > PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin" > > MY_LIST=1;2;3;4;5 > > > > and then attempt to `apt install` any program. You should then see: > > dpkg: error processing package install-info (--configure): > > installed install-info package post-installation script subprocess > > returned error exit status 127 > > > > > > Please let me know if there is any additional context I can provide > > here to further assist you in deciding how to address this bug. > > > > Thanks, > > Mitchell Augustin > > > > > > On Wed, Dec 10, 2025 at 5:13 PM Mitchell Augustin > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > Hi all, > > > > > > This still seems to be an issue for some applications. Have there been > > > any discussions on the Debian side about adjusting the handling of > > > /etc/environment here? > > > > > > -- > > > Mitchell Augustin > > > Software Engineer - Ubuntu Partner Engineering > > > Email:[email protected] > > > Location:United States of America (Central Time) > > > > > > > > > canonical.com > > > ubuntu.com > > > > > > > > -- > > Mitchell Augustin > > Software Engineer - Ubuntu Partner Engineering > > Email:[email protected] > > Location:United States of America (Central Time) > > > > > > canonical.com > > ubuntu.com > > > > -- > Mitchell Augustin > Software Engineer - Ubuntu Partner Engineering > Email:[email protected] > [email protected] > Location:United States of America (Central Time) > > > canonical.com > ubuntu.com > -- [image: Canonical-20th-anniversary] Mitchell Augustin Software Engineer - Ubuntu Partner Engineering Email: [email protected] [email protected] Location: United States of America (Central Time) canonical.com ubuntu.com
