when install prefixed portage into $HOME/gentoo and run $HOME/gentoo/startprefix some programs from the host system are not avalable anymore. it happens because prefix gento does not take into account PATH variable and sets everything anew, but it should append. the similar thing with MANPATH and INFOPATH: they are empty on host system, default directory /usr/share/man is appended to MANPATH, but nothing to INFOPATH Reproducible: Always
This is exactly the intent. Prefix stuff should override any stuff from the host OS. If you have programs installed in non-standard locations in the host system, you'll have to add the paths to them manually to your PATH. As for the INFOPATH that may be a bug indeed. What shell do you use?
(In reply to comment #1) > This is exactly the intent. what is the rationale for that? I expected that prefix should first look in its program, then if not found, on the host system... adding PATH could be a pain if one keeps the same ~/.bashrc on all machines, where different custom PATHs are used. in my case the host system is rather old RedHat, with number of custom bin directories. the worst thing is that the HOME directory also mounted on a cluster, where PATH is diffent. > As for the INFOPATH that may be a bug indeed. What shell do you use? actually my login shell is csh (I cannot change it unfortunately), but the first command in .cshrc runs env SHELL=/bin/bash $HOME/gentoo/startprefix
You are not obliged to run the startprefix script. If it makes more sense for you to just add/append/prepend the paths that you like and start a shell from your prefix, then that's all fine too. It's just that if something doesn't work properly, while it does when running through startprefix script, I won't fix it. A prefix is self-sufficient, and without running a prefixed login shell it is hard to get it all setup correctly for some cases (think of ruby, java and other things that work through environment settings) That said, the best I can do for you here, is that when you know what you're doing, just don't use startprefix script, but immitate it manually (e.g. by sourcing prefix etc/profile or something).
