In the IRC, someone asked about an error message:
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/homeless-shelter'
This error happened when trying to build a Python package, python-libpysal.
The solution was to set HOME to /tmp:
(arguments
`(#:phases
(modify-phases %standard-phases
(add-before 'check 'fix-home-directory
(lambda _
;; Tests fail with "Permission denied: '/homeless-shelter'".
(setenv "HOME" "/tmp"))))
Basically, some projects expect a $HOME to be defined and will fail because
Guix sets $HOME to /homeless-shelter, which doesn't exist in the build
environment.
As I understand it, $HOME is set to /homeless-shelter during build because
that's how Nix does/did it and "there’s no home
directory in build environments, and perhaps Eelco Dolstra and others back then
found that setting ‘HOME’ to a non-existing directory broke
fewer builds that leaving it unset."
Is my understanding correct?
Is this something that should be documented, and if so, where?
IRC log:
https://logs.guix.gnu.org/guix/2022-01-16.log#003312
Previous Guix discussion:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-11/msg00311.html
