XDG_DATA_DIRS has an issue where /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share is in the path when using the Gnome desktop. This is impacting software including Evolution.
This does not happen when using ssh to the system. I have checked /etc/profile.d/* and do not see that this happening from there. There is a flatpak.sh but in testing via removal, I do not see a change indicating it is coming from that script.
The extraneous path is “/root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share”
This issue is happening in a clean install of Rocky Linux 9.8
This issue is not happening in a clean install using RHEL 9.8.
Example from a terminal in Gnome with the bad path:
One more thing, whilst it doesn’t appear in the XDG_DATA_DIRS when connecting over SSH, it does still appear if you login on a console, eg: CTRL-ALT-F3. So it’s not just related to the graphical environment, but standard tty console as well.
The Rocky project rebuilds sources from upstream in a our own build system. It is always possible for builds to be different though we make every effort to ensure that doesn’t happen. It appears this may be a case where a difference slipped through unnoticed.
I understand that, and the build is huge, but wouldn’t there be a log file at the end saying some packages are out-of-sync? Anyway, good news this has been spotted. It still doesn’t fully explain the original issue, even if the flatpak package was the old one, why did it try to use ‘/root’?
where gdm does not read the local configuration files.
journalctl -b|grep gdm shows a lot of entries like
gsettings[2343]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gnome-session-b[2342]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gnome-shell[2368]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
at-spi-bus-laun[2471]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-sharing[2558]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-sound[2579]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-housekeepin[2582]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-smartcard[2570]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-usb-protect[2562]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-color[2566]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-a11y-settin[2580]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-keyboard[2567]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-wacom[2571]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-power[2583]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-datetime[2576]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-media-keys[2577]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gjs[2765]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
gsd-xsettings[2581]: Unable to open /root/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share/dconf/profile/gdm:
Adaptation in /etc/profile.d/flatpak.sh does not really help here.
Downgrading to previous flatpak-1.12.9-4.el9_6.x86_64 does not fix the problem.
If I take a working recently patched 9.7 system and only upgrade
systemd from 252-55.el9_7.9.rocky.0.1 to 252-67.el9.rocky.0.1
the problem appears.
It appears to be a problem with the systemd packages.
If I take a fully patched 9.8 broken system and replace the systemd 252-67.el9.rocky.0.1
packages with the systemd 252-67.el9_8.2.alma.1 from Alma linux the problem goes away.