[BUG] guix shell seems to require --bootstrap when not bootstrapping

Christopher Rodriguez wrote on 22 Jun 2022 23:20

Recipients:(address . bug-guix@gnu.org)

Message-ID:pkmp4eczf0nztv.fsf@crane.ant.amazon.com

Hello all,

I was recently working on creating a `guix.scm` file for a guile project

I've made for myself. When I ran `guix shell -f guix.scm bash` on the

script (or the same without bash), it built the package fine… Which I

expected because I have long-since added this package to my personal

channel.

However, guix for some reason couldn't finish creating the

environment. It kept failing during the 'building TeX Live font maps...'

step, throwing a bunch of warnings about non-existant files and

eventually throwing the following error:

```

updmap [ERROR]: The following map file(s) couldn't be found:

updmap [ERROR]: dvips35.map (in builtin)

updmap [ERROR]: pdftex35.map (in builtin)

updmap [ERROR]: ps2pk35.map (in builtin)

```

I kept trying to add packages to the environment, eventually seeing if I

could reproduce the error in a second profile. I haven't been successful

yet.

But I have found that adding the `--bootstrap` flag to the command

allows it to succeed. For clarity, `guix shell -f guix.scm --bootstrap`

succeeds, but `guix shell -f guix.scm` does not.

Is this intended behavior? If not, could someone tell me what I might be

doing wrong? If so, is this documented anywhere, so I can avoid running

into this problem in the future by understanding it better?

Relevant Links:

http://paste.debian.net/1244902/is the full error from the failing

step.

`guix.scm` file that produces the issue.

channel.

are the not-yet-in-guix-but-free-software package definitions loaded in

(use-modules (cdr255 tex)).

with nckx about this on #guix.

Thank You for Your time!

Christopher Rodriguez