[Pkg-lyx-devel] Bug#816173: Bug#816173: Bug#816173: lyx: Lyx failed to start if the $HOME/.lyx does not exist

[Sven Hoexter]

On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 10:22:45PM +0100, Georg Baum wrote:
> Am 28.02.2016 um 18:22 schrieb Sven Hoexter:
> >On Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 11:42:52AM +0100, picca wrote:

Hello Georg,

> >>1) lyx try to create a $HOME/.lyx even if $HOME does not exist
> >>2) it would be great to avoir creating this .lyx directory by default.
> >While I agree that 1) is a bug 2) is a bit more complicated.
> It is documented that LyX needs a user configuration directory. If the
> default location does not fit, you can use the -userdir parameter. Where is
> the problem? Would you like to fail in a different way if $HOME does not
> exist? It would be easy to add a check for that, but I'd like to understand
> the problem before doing anything.

IMO there should be a check, maybe in the python script itself, to check if
it can write to $HOME/.lyx at all. If not abort with an error message pointing
to the -userdir option. I think using the -userdir option is also the
way to go if you use lyx during build time in minimal build environments
like sbuild chroots.


> >LyX is not really intended to be used this way, it's more or less
> >centered around the idea of an GUI use in a real user environment.
> Most people do indeed use LyX that way, but using it via command line
> without a GUI is an important use case as well (and works fine in general).

Sorry I wasn't precise here, I used LyX + makefiles + git all the time.
My point was more about the build chroots without a real
user environment that is far away from some kind of "end user setup". Scrap
the "GUI" from my sentence.

Cheers,
Sven