Correct way to package this in distributions

[faulesocke]

What is the correct way to package rustup for shipping with linux distributions? When we just install the compiled rustup-init as /usr/bin/rustup it does not seem to put anything into ~/.cargo/bin. However, when we install it as /usr/bin/rustup-init, the users will just have to run rustup-init every time the package gets updated in order to get the correct version installed into their ~/.cargo/bin. So what is the correct way to do things, i.e. how can I get rustup to install symlinks into ~/.cargo/bin correctly (hardlinks won't probably work since it's a common pattern that /home and /usr reside on different file systems).

[kinnison]

The "correct" way would be for your package to set up all the hardlinks for rustup in /usr/bin.

In addition you should ensure that you build with the no-self-update feature enabled so that rustup won't try and replace itself which would otherwise go pretty wrong.

However I'd note that rustup is not really meant to be packaged by distributions, at least not right now, so your experience won't be optimal.

[Cogitri]

Distros have to package rustup in case they support arches rustup doesn't (yet) support though. In Void Linux and Alpine Linux I've done it by patching rustup to make symlinks in $HOME/.cargo/bin instead of hardlinks to allow the package manager to update rustup which works for now.

[kinnison]

@Cogitri If there are platforms for which rustc and cargo are built and for which we don't provide a rustup then it's worth letting us know (in independent issues) so that we can look at providing such builds.

[Cogitri]

Yup, but e.g. when rust started supporting x86_64-unkown-linux-musl rustup didn't immediately catch up to that IIRC (not sure if it supports it now). Additionally some people prefer their package manager keeping track of as much as possible (without sacrificing the flexibility rustup has).

[kinnison]

Fair enough. We do support musl now I think, but I appreciate there's a delay.

[faulesocke]

However I'd note that rustup is not really meant to be packaged by distributions, at least not right now, so your experience won't be optimal.

The symlink-patch from @Cogitri works quite nice to give an optimal experience.

[workingjubilee]

@rustbot label: +O-linux