bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
Hello! Maxim Cournoyer skribis: > The case of interest here is the default user profile or > $HOME/.guix-profile, which gets added to XDG_DATA_DIRS via /etc/profile > (on Guix System). Because of the indirect links to the store, and the > mutable /var/guix/profiles/per-user/$USER directory used to store the > profile links, it is possible to have inotify work correctly. The > algorithm described above would resolve $HOME/.guix-profile into > /var/guix/profiles/per-user/$USER, and /run/current-system into /run. > > While adding a watch to /run is not optimal, it's not dramatic either > given the watch is not recursive and only watch for specific actions: > > #define IP_INOTIFY_DIR_MASK > > (IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_DELETE|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_CLOSE_WRITE) > > (from gio/inotify/inotify-path.c) I think our messages crossed. :-) I agree with your conclusions. I posted a preliminary patch following our discussion: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/36376#2 It’s only taking care of ~/.guix-profile, not /run, because I think that’s the most common case. (Usually you’d only add applications to /run when reconfiguring, and then you may reboot shortly after in a laptop kind of setting. Also, one typically doesn’t *add* applications to /run.) Thoughts? Ludo’.
bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
Hi again, Maxim Cournoyer writes: > Hello, > > Maxim Cournoyer writes: > >> After asking in the #gnome channel on freenode, the problem is likely >> caused by GNOME Shell using inotify to watch the $XDG_DATA_DIRS >> referenced $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications directory. The >> problem is that the inode of such directory will never change, as it >> points to the current profile under /gnu/store: >> >> $ ls -id $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications >> 72653730 /home/maxim/.guix-profile/share/applications/ >> maxim@hurd ~/src/guix$ realpath $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications >> /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications >> maxim@hurd ~/src/guix$ ls -id >> /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications >> 72653730 >> /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications/ >> >> Any applications making use of inotify to discover changes (to plugins, >> for example) is at risk of having the same problem in Guix. >> >> I don't currently have an idea of how we can fix this. > > Watching of the directory is done via Glib's GAppInfoMonitor > (gpio/gdesktopappinfo.c). A suggested idea from #gnome-shell would be > to patch its desktop_file_dir_init() procedure with Guix-specifics; I > don't know *how* yet. The folks in #gtk may provide some clues. > > Maxim I've analyzed the situation a bit; I'll explain the big lines of what I think might be a solution. The idea would be to patch desktop_file_dir_init() as mentioned earlier with a procedure similar to desktop_file_dir_get_alternative_dir in that same gdesktopappinfo.c file. This new procedure would search for a parent symlink of the dir argument (dir being one of the entries constructed via XDG_DATA_DIRS, such as $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications.). The algorithm for this new procedure would be like: 1. Check if a parent of DIR is a symlink. When there are none, return NULL. 2. Resolve the symlink parent until the last symlink, e.g. for symlink1 -> symlink2 -> directory, it saves symlink2. 3. Return the parent directory of the symlink resulting from 2 (i.e. dirname symlink2). In most cases (guix environment, build environment, extra user profiles), the entries in XDG_DATA_DIRS are not symlinks but directly store entries so there's nothing we can do about it. The case of interest here is the default user profile or $HOME/.guix-profile, which gets added to XDG_DATA_DIRS via /etc/profile (on Guix System). Because of the indirect links to the store, and the mutable /var/guix/profiles/per-user/$USER directory used to store the profile links, it is possible to have inotify work correctly. The algorithm described above would resolve $HOME/.guix-profile into /var/guix/profiles/per-user/$USER, and /run/current-system into /run. While adding a watch to /run is not optimal, it's not dramatic either given the watch is not recursive and only watch for specific actions: #define IP_INOTIFY_DIR_MASK (IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_DELETE|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_UNMOUNT|IN_MOVE_SELF|IN_CLOSE_WRITE) (from gio/inotify/inotify-path.c) Thoughts? Thanks, Maxim
bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
Hello, Maxim Cournoyer writes: > After asking in the #gnome channel on freenode, the problem is likely > caused by GNOME Shell using inotify to watch the $XDG_DATA_DIRS > referenced $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications directory. The > problem is that the inode of such directory will never change, as it > points to the current profile under /gnu/store: > > $ ls -id $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications > 72653730 /home/maxim/.guix-profile/share/applications/ > maxim@hurd ~/src/guix$ realpath $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications > /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications > maxim@hurd ~/src/guix$ ls -id > /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications > 72653730 > /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications/ > > Any applications making use of inotify to discover changes (to plugins, > for example) is at risk of having the same problem in Guix. > > I don't currently have an idea of how we can fix this. Watching of the directory is done via Glib's GAppInfoMonitor (gpio/gdesktopappinfo.c). A suggested idea from #gnome-shell would be to patch its desktop_file_dir_init() procedure with Guix-specifics; I don't know *how* yet. The folks in #gtk may provide some clues. Maxim
bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
Hello, sirgazil writes: > Hi, > > I installed the GNU system in a real machine using Guix 1.0 ISO > installer > (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz). > > Whenever I install a desktop application, the application icon does > not show up immediately in the list of available applications. I have > to log out and log in again to be able to see it. > > > ## Steps to reproduce > > 1. Install a desktop application (I tried GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Audacity) > 2. Click on "Activities". > 3. Click on "Show Applications" (the button with nine dots). > > > ## Unexpected result > > The icon of the installed application is not in the list. > > > ## Expected result. > > The icon of the installed application is in the list. After asking in the #gnome channel on freenode, the problem is likely caused by GNOME Shell using inotify to watch the $XDG_DATA_DIRS referenced $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications directory. The problem is that the inode of such directory will never change, as it points to the current profile under /gnu/store: --8<---cut here---start->8--- $ ls -id $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications 72653730 /home/maxim/.guix-profile/share/applications/ maxim@hurd ~/src/guix$ realpath $HOME/.guix-profile/share/applications /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications maxim@hurd ~/src/guix$ ls -id /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications 72653730 /gnu/store/ph6a7fy735w5nycmf3za77m6v3g0r7xb-profile/share/applications/ --8<---cut here---end--->8--- Any applications making use of inotify to discover changes (to plugins, for example) is at risk of having the same problem in Guix. I don't currently have an idea of how we can fix this. Maxim
bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
On Sun, 05 May 2019 21:21:59 -0500 Mark H Weaver wrote > Hi, > > sirgazil writes: > > > I installed the GNU system in a real machine using Guix 1.0 ISO > > installer > > (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz). > > > > > > Whenever I install a desktop application, the application icon does > > not show up immediately in the list of available applications. I have > > to log out and log in again to be able to see it. > > Indeed, this has always been the case on Guix, and I agree it would be > good to fix it. FWIW, another way to refresh the list of available > applications from GNOME Shell is to type: Alt-F2, and then enter the > single letter "r" as the command. That should restart GNOME Shell > without affecting your other applications. (Unfortunately for me, this > only works under Xorg, not Wayland.) > > A related issue is that if you upgrade a program in Guix, and then > launch it using GNOME Shell, it will launch the old one. That's because > our installed desktop files are specifically rewritten to launch the > program via an absolute path name /gnu/store/x/bin/* instead of > simply looking in PATH, and GNOME Shell continues to use the old desktop > files until it's restarted. This was implemented back in 2016, here: > > > https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=d31860b9de07810e114490db5cc160a8b078c58d > > > I remember thinking it was a bad idea at the time, but I didn't have > enough energy to speak up about it. I see... Thanks for the information, Mark.
bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
Hi, sirgazil writes: > I installed the GNU system in a real machine using Guix 1.0 ISO > installer > (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz). > > Whenever I install a desktop application, the application icon does > not show up immediately in the list of available applications. I have > to log out and log in again to be able to see it. Indeed, this has always been the case on Guix, and I agree it would be good to fix it. FWIW, another way to refresh the list of available applications from GNOME Shell is to type: Alt-F2, and then enter the single letter "r" as the command. That should restart GNOME Shell without affecting your other applications. (Unfortunately for me, this only works under Xorg, not Wayland.) A related issue is that if you upgrade a program in Guix, and then launch it using GNOME Shell, it will launch the old one. That's because our installed desktop files are specifically rewritten to launch the program via an absolute path name /gnu/store/x/bin/* instead of simply looking in PATH, and GNOME Shell continues to use the old desktop files until it's restarted. This was implemented back in 2016, here: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=d31860b9de07810e114490db5cc160a8b078c58d I remember thinking it was a bad idea at the time, but I didn't have enough energy to speak up about it. Mark
bug#35594: GNOME: Application icons are not displayed immediately after installation
Hi, I installed the GNU system in a real machine using Guix 1.0 ISO installer (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guix-system-install-1.0.0.x86_64-linux.iso.xz). Whenever I install a desktop application, the application icon does not show up immediately in the list of available applications. I have to log out and log in again to be able to see it. ## Steps to reproduce 1. Install a desktop application (I tried GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape, Audacity) 2. Click on "Activities". 3. Click on "Show Applications" (the button with nine dots). ## Unexpected result The icon of the installed application is not in the list. ## Expected result. The icon of the installed application is in the list. --- https://sirgazil.bitbucket.io/
