FTBFS trying to create .lyx directory

[Bryce Harrington]

FTBFS in Ubuntu:
  https://launchpadlibrarian.net/685577726/buildlog_ubuntu-mantic-amd64.gpsim-doc_0.22.0-3_BUILDING.txt.gz

Debian hits the same issue:
  https://buildd.debian.org/status/fetch.php?pkg=gpsim-doc&arch=all&ver=0.22.0-3&stamp=1691400860&raw=0

Appears to be not well maintained (see debb #1043166).

This error seems to be intentional by packaging, to avoid documentation being built in $HOME. See https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2016/02/msg00456.html and debb #816173.

---

lyx -batch -E pdf gpsim-doc.pdf gpsim.lyx
LyX: Creating directory /sbuild-nonexistent/.lyx/
Failed to create directory. Exiting.
support/lassert.cpp (51): ASSERTION pimpl_->application_.get() VIOLATED IN ../../src/LyX.cpp:464
( 1) lyx: lyx(+0x700b4a) [0x55c89b008b4a]
( 2) lyx: lyx(+0x72876f) [0x55c89b03076f]
( 3) lyx: lyx(+0x29ca5f) [0x55c89aba4a5f]
( 4) lyx: lyx(+0x29de83) [0x55c89aba5e83]
( 5) lyx: lyx(+0x2a0515) [0x55c89aba8515]
( 6) lyx: lyx(+0x2a2742) [0x55c89abaa742]
( 7) lyx: lyx(+0x6e36ac) [0x55c89afeb6ac]
( 8) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: QObject::event(QEvent*)
( 9) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: QCoreApplication::notifyInternal2(QObject*, QEvent*)
( 10) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: QCoreApplicationPrivate::sendPostedEvents(QObject*, int, QThreadData*)
( 11) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5(+0x3286f7) [0x7efcd0deb6f7]
( 12) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x5aafc) [0x7efcd03e6afc]
( 13) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0xb643f) [0x7efcd044243f]
( 14) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_iteration+0x30) [0x7efcd03e4cf0]
( 15) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: QEventDispatcherGlib::processEvents(QFlags<QEventLoop::ProcessEventsFlag>)
( 16) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: QEventLoop::exec(QFlags<QEventLoop::ProcessEventsFlag>)
( 17) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: QCoreApplication::exec()
( 18) lyx: lyx(+0x2a0b5e) [0x55c89aba8b5e]
( 19) lyx: lyx(+0x1a63cf) [0x55c89aaae3cf]
( 20) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x280d0) [0x7efcd05020d0]
( 21) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0x89) [0x7efcd0502189]
( 22) lyx: lyx(+0x1b2495) [0x55c89aaba495]
make: *** [debian/rules:16: build-stamp] Error 1
dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules build subprocess returned exit status 2

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

From https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gpsim-doc/tree/debian/rules:

build: configure-stamp build-stamp
build-stamp:
 dh_testdir
 lyx -batch -E pdf gpsim-doc.pdf gpsim.lyx
 touch build-stamp

From Lyx upstream bug https://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/4393 this is a known issue but wontfix since they view Lyx as more of a userspace application. However, there exists a -userdir parameter which might allow setting a different dir to use for its cached information. So, perhaps the rules need adjusted to:

build: configure-stamp build-stamp
build-stamp:
 dh_testdir
        mkdir /var/tmp/lyx
 lyx -userdir /var/tmp/lyx -batch -E pdf gpsim-doc.pdf gpsim.lyx
 touch build-stamp

From the man page, sounds like an alternative is to set LYX_USERDIR_23x="/var/tmp/lyx"