bug#30228: desktop files embedding full path

[Efraim Flashner]

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 12:00:02PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Efraim Flashner <address@hidden> skribis:
> 
> > On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 03:58:51PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >> 
> >> Efraim Flashner <address@hidden> skribis:
> >> 
> >> > the owncloud-client package includes an option to add a .desktop entry
> >> > to $HOME/.configure/autostart/, which allows it to autostart when you
> >> > log in to your desktop environment. Because the full path of the binary
> >> > is in the .desktop file, it will always start THAT copy of
> >> > owncloud-client, even if it is garbage collected.
> >> 
> >> I think you shouldn’t copy manually the .desktop file to
> >> ~/.configure/autostart, precisely because of that.
> >> 
> >> Instead this should be done via in indirect GC root (as in “guix build
> >> -r the-root owncloud-client”) or, ideally, by having it GuixSD-managed.
> >> 
> >> Thoughts?
> >> 
> >> Ludo’.
> >
> > I agree it shouldn't copy a .desktop file into .config/autostart/. In
> > this case, the offending code is here¹, so there's not much that can be
> > done about it. In mine I've changed the Exec line to
> > /var/guix/profiles/per-user/... so it'll work as expected. In this case
> > the code generates a desktop file on the fly, so modifying the .desktop
> > file shipping with applications wouldn't even help here.
> >
> >
> > ¹ 
> > https://github.com/owncloud/client/blob/f326bf371d690f1929f7c5c06aebf53c7255daa6/src/common/utility_unix.cpp#L73
> 
> What do you think should be done on the Guix side?  We could patch the
> code above to not install the .desktop file in ~/.config, for instance.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ludo’.

I've been thinking about it and it would also just be possible to patch
the exec line there to only have the binary name. As an unintended
consquence, if you did add the desktop entry to .config/autostart/ and
the exec was only 'owncloud-client' then we would match the other
distros' behaviors of not running uninstalled programs, if you were to
later uninstall owncloud-client from your profile.

I bet the reason it is coded this way is to allow for
/usr/bin/owncloud-client or /usr/local/bin/owncloud-client, but just
'owncloud-client' will pick up the executable if it is in the runpath.

I think that's the best option, to change the 'exec' line to just
'owncloud-client'.

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