So, in order to avoid typing “flatpak run”, every time I need to run a flatpak program from the terminal, to have gui programs installed using nix appear in my applications menu(rofi, in this case), and to avoid typing the entire path to my .local/bin, I had added the following lines to my .profile:
set PATH so it includes user’s private bin if it exists
if [ -d “$HOME/bin” ] ; then export PATH=“$HOME/bin:$PATH” fi
set PATH so it includes user’s private bin if it exists
if [ -d “$HOME/.local/bin” ] ; then export PATH=“$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH” fi
for desktop entries for packages installed using Nix
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=“/home/guest/.nix-profile/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS”
set PATH so it includes user’s private bin if it exists
if [ -d “/var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin” ] ; then export PATH=“/var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin:$PATH” fi
if [ -d “~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/bin” ] ; then export PATH=“~/.local/share/flatpak/exports/bin:$PATH” fi
However, for some weird reason, I cannot take advantage of the above lines unless I am in a tmux session or I explicitly type the following command:
source .profile
Any ideas on how to fix this?
EDIT: Adding the following line to .xsessionrc fixed the issue (haven’t checked for wayland sessions though).
. $HOME/.profile
#Debian #Debian11 #foss #floss #libre_software #applications #desktop #gui #nix #flatpak #flatpaks #gnu #linux #opensource #open_source #tmux #bash #profile #shell #terminal
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.profileis only sourced when the shell is a login shell. Most shells started by terminal emulators under a GUI are not login shells.Depending on how you connect to a machine, you may or may not get a login shell. Through SSH or similar may well get you a login shell. Using the text-console (usually through Ctrl+Alt+F1 through F6 on modern distros) also yields a login shell.
Try putting things in your
.bashrcinstead. That one is sourced regardless of login shell or not.If you’re not using bash, substitute the relevant file.
.zshrcand.config/fishare the main two.Thanks, that works with the flatpaks. However, it doesn’t seem to work with nix packages. I mean rofi doesn’t detect the .desktop files for packages installed using nix.
Do you have anything else your
~/.bashrcthat is perhaps overwriting thePATH?One thing you can do is just add
echos to your.profileto see if it is getting sourced and what the state ofPATHis as it gets loaded. That might help you trace what is happening.Thanks for the response. I will try to as you have advised. Adding those lines to .bashrc helped with flatpaks but not with nix.
I had a similar issue some time ago, not sure which distro it was. The solution was to rename the
.profileto.bash_profile:)Thanks for the response. But in my case, even that does not work as well.
Does your .bashrc actually source .bash_profile? Add
[ ! -f "~/.bash_profile" ] || . "~/.bash_profile"(.bash_profile doesn’t exist or source it) to the end if not.Adding those lines to .bashrc helped with flatpaks but not with nix.
Since
.bashrcis executed for all non-login shells, it shouldn’t really source.profile, which is only meant for login shells, and might trigger expensive activity. (.profilemight source.bashrc, but that`s fine.)
You’ve probably already checked it out but make sure you’ve got only one of
.profile,.bash_profile,.bashprofile. bash will only execute one of them in case there’s more than one (not sure which one off the top of my head.)I only have .profile. Actually adding those lines as to .bashrc as suggested by @palordrolap@kbin.social helped for the flatpak commands. But the issue with .desktop files for programs installed using nix still persists.
Did you check ownership and permissions for .profile?
Changed it allow execution for the owner. Still no results. Tried with both .profile and .bash_profile.
It’s .bash_profile, not .profile
Thanks for the response. But that does not work as well.
May be relevant, but it sounds like the behavior you see is not completely accounted for.
Thanks, I will check it out. Adding those lines to .bashrc helped with flatpaks but not with nix.
Are other lines in
.profilebeing executed, or is the whole file ignored? Have you logged out and in again since adding these lines?Thanks for the response. Adding those lines to .bashrc helped with flatpaks but not with nix.
But those kinds of initialisations belong in
.profile(or, if you’re using a weird desktop environment, its own configuration file), particularly if you want.desktopfiles to work. (In.bashrc,PATHwill grow longer in each subshell, which shouldn’t cause problems but is wasteful.)So, what desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, etc.) are you using?
.profileis executed by login shells for the benefit of it and its subshells, and by DEs like Cinnamon for the benefit of.desktoplaunchers at login.So, have you logged out and back in again since adding these lines to
.profile?And of course, the
.profilehas to be executed properly for its configuration to take effect, so it`s useful to know if the problem is with those specific lines, or the file as a whole.Add:—
date >> ~/profile-execution-log-top.txt echo $PATH >> ~/profile-execution-log-top.txtto the top of
.profile, and:—date >> ~/profile-execution-log-end.txt echo $PATH >> ~/profile-execution-log-end.txtto the bottom of
.profile(use alternative paths as you see fit) to monitor that activity. You can test this by sourcing.profilebut the real test is logging out and in again. Look at the time when you do this so you can correlate each action with each timestamp in the log files. If.profileis executed to completion, you should have two files with matching timestamps but differentPATHs. If you don’t have a matching timestamp in the “end” log file, there’s a problem mid-execution. If neither file is being updated,.profileisn’t being executed at all.Hi, Thanks for the response. Sorry for disturbing you. I have tried what you have suggested here. There are two files with matching timestamps but different PATHs. I am using i3wm in Debian 11. Please tell me how to deal with this issue.
Admittedly, I have much less experience with i3, so I fired up a virtual machine with Debian 11.6 and installed
i3(along withlightdm) and was able to recreate the problem of.profilenot being executed when logging in, so this isn’t unique to your particular setup. Great!Fortunately, this combination does execute commands in
~/.xsessionrc, so I added:—. $HOME/.profileto that file, then logged out and back in again. That did the trick for me, with the commands in
.profilethen successfully modifying thePATHvariable (and writing additional lines to the execution log files), so I suggest you try creating/modifying.xsessionrcin the same way.Oh, thanks a lot for the efforts! You really are one of a kind to conduct an experiment to help out a stranger on the internet. Yeah, this actually works. I just added those lines to .xsessionrc and all problems were solved.
If you don’t mind my asking. Do you work in IT as a sysadmin or a developer or a cybersecurity expert? Or something else? I am just curious as to how may have gained such knowledge.
Helping one another out is invisibilized, not rare. A good chunk of what I know comes from other people taking the time to explain why something works the way it does and how you can see that for yourself. The rest is from curiosity, experimentation, and hammering away at something until it fits. It’s not professionally specialized knowledge.
@aebletrae @liberatedGuy this just happened to me today and I am forever grateful to that person for explaining it instead of “shit.just.works.”
