On Mon, Nov 3, 2025 at 10:17 AM mononoke <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> I'm attempting to build and install a package definition for this program:
> https://github.com/milgra/sov
>
> Following the examples in the Guix manual, and so far so good, except that
> build tests fail with this output after running `guix package --install-from-
> file=sov.scm`:
> > Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories
I suspect the program is trying to call fontconfig, however fontconfig
requires a writable directory like `/home/mononoke/.cache/fontconfig`.
By looking at the source code of Guix, I have found a similar issue.
Namely, the definition of `pspp` at `gnu/packages/statistics.scm` has
a workaround:
```
(add-before 'check 'prepare-tests
;; Prevent irrelevant errors that cause test output mismatches:
;; ‘Fontconfig error: No writable cache directories’
(lambda _
(setenv "XDG_CACHE_HOME" (getcwd))))
```
Try to adapt this to our expression!
>
>
> I'm still inexperienced with Guile Scheme & writing custom package
> definitions,
> and I'm not sure how to fix this. I've attached the .scm file for reference.
> Maybe I've done something wrong along the way?
