Failed to initialize logging on read-only HOME

[mennthor]

I'm on Debian Jessie but the HOME is read-only atm.
So I set CARGO_HOME to a writable location and installed helix from source as specified in the README.
The runtime folder was copied to $CARGO_HOME/bin.
I tested this setup on another machine (OSX) with writable home and it works properly there.
On the Debian however, I get

Error: failed to initialize logging

Caused by:
    Read-only file system (os error 30)

when starting hx.

[archseer]

Good point, we should probably log into config_dir() (usually ~/.config/helix)

helix/helix-core/src/lib.rs

Lines 59 to 66 in c67e318

	pub fn config_dir() -> std::path::PathBuf {
	// TODO: allow env var override
	use etcetera::base_strategy::{choose_base_strategy, BaseStrategy};
	let strategy = choose_base_strategy().expect("Unable to find the config directory!");
	let mut path = strategy.config_dir();
	path.push("helix");
	path
	}

Right now it just always uses home:

helix/helix-term/src/main.rs

Line 43 in f4560cb

.chain(fern::log_file(home.join("helix.log"))?);

[vv9k]

Changing the path to config_dir still doesn't resolve the issue of $HOME being read-only. I'm wondering if perhaps the result of setup_logging should be ignored so users can still operate without the logging mechanism?

[archseer]

I reopened this since it doesn't fully resolve your issue; is ~/.config/``~/.local/ etc. completely unwritable? I find that a bit surprising.

[pickfire]

The weirdest thing I find is it logs (at first to home, then to ~/.config which it shouldn't) by default, I thought log should be opt-in? If not we can just log to /tmp right? See #64

[mennthor]

Is config_dir settable via ENVVAR? Then I could choose a suitable path myself.
And yes, all of ~ is read-only atm (I had to reroute basically all settings, vim, pip, jupyter, etc.).

[pickfire]

What if we do like -u <config> or -u none? none to disable config.

[coldpure9ev]

it's just the log function, we shouldn't just disable the config. Maybe we can make it /tmp by default or spare, and when the log file unwriteable , the editor should be useable, and don't forget the warning info

[archseer]

We follow the XDG specification on Linux/macOS, so if you set XDG_CACHE_HOME it'll look for a helix folder there. I think that should be the preferred solution, since that way you're able to fix all applications that rely on XDG.

I think we don't need a separate flag to disable this because we'll be leveraging the cache even more in the future (to store :command history, /search history, persist undo states & document positions across restarts etc)

[mennthor]

We follow the XDG specification on Linux/macOS, so if you set XDG_CACHE_HOME it'll look for a helix folder there.

Not sure I get that correctly. I already have XDG_CACHE_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME and XDG_CACHE_HOME set to writable and existing directories (and also added a helix folder in each, just to be sure), but the logging error is still there.
Am I overlooking a setting / flag I need to give at startup?

[archseer]

This is on the latest release (0.0.10), and the error is still "Read-only file system"? It's supposed to log to XDG_CACHE_HOME/helix/helix.log now.

[mennthor]

Sorry, that was my fault. It does indeed log to XDG_CACHE_HOME/helix/helix.log now.
Thanks :)

[pickfire]

@mennthor Ah, no. Thanks for sending in the issue request. It was only since 0.0.10 doing that but 0.0.9 doesn't have this. Closing this as it isn't an issue, it was also shown in -h.

[Siilwyn]

Maybe it would be nice to use the new XDG_STATE_HOME for this.