Today I had another user reporting issues where my packages wouldn’t install the executables somewhere in the users $PATH. I’ve written about this issue before, and I’ve also created a ticket on the bug tracker, along with a possible solution.

I haven’t heard anything from the guys responsible yet, but things have changed, yet again. This is how the /etc/profile.d/perlbin.sh script looks now:

# Set path to perl scriptdirs if they exist
# https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Perl_Policy#Binaries_and_Scripts
# Added /usr/bin/*_perl dirs for scripts
# Remove /usr/lib/perl5/*_perl/bin in next release

[ -d /usr/bin/site_perl ] &&
    PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin/site_perl
[ -d /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/bin ] &&
    PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/bin

[ -d /usr/bin/vendor_perl ] &&
    PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin/vendor_perl
[ -d /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/bin ] &&
    PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/bin

[ -d /usr/bin/core_perl ] &&
    PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin/core_perl

export PATH

# If you have modules in non-standard directories you can add them here.
#export PERLLIB=dir1:dir2

So to make things clear; the paths went from (the working) /usr/bin/perlbin to /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/bin and back to /usr/bin/perlbin. Keep in mind that this script still fails for a lot of people since the directories DOES NOT EXIST. The conversation that led up to this can be read in this bug report.

A ‘solution’, as pointed out in the bug report for the pickyfont package, would be to create a symlink from /usr/bin/vendor_perl/pickyfont to /usr/bin/pickyfont. But this is not a solution. A solution would be to replace this shitty non-working script with my patched version that I provided in the bug report.

Having to provide support for issues that I can’t do something about is frustrating. That’s why I wrote that other post. I’m so fed up with packaging stuff for Archlinux, I’ll most likely stop and direct users to the git repository or the CPAN.

The PKGBUILD system sure is nice and easy and fluffy and all that, but it’s even easier writing a simple Makefile and uploading the stuff to CPAN.

But then again, if you use Archlinux, the executebles wont be found in your PATH…