Mirror of forum.nim-lang.org

13287 :: Troubleshooting $nim import path issues in Fedora packaging

• planetis (orginal) [2025-08-03T01:52:18+02:00] view original

  Hey everyone,

  I'm trying to create Fedora packages that will hopefully fix the issues with Terra, which you can view here: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/planetis/nim/builds/

  I have limited experience with Fedora, but you can find my work-in-progress .spec file here: https://download.copr.fedorainfracloud.org/results/planetis/nim/fedora-42-x86_64/09366435-nim-devel/nim-devel.spec

  While it builds normal modules correctly, the package struggles with the "$nim" special import that's used in nimony. Any help would be appreciated.

  When I try to compile, I get this error:

  
  $ nim c hastur.nim
  Error: cannot open file: /usr/lib/nim/dist/checksums/src/checksums/sha1
  Run

  As I currently understand it, this is caused by the splitting of the Nim directories into different system directories (/usr/bin, /usr/lib/nim, /usr/share/nim, /etc/nim). More information about this issue can be found here: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/10191 and https://nim-lang.org/docs/packaging.html

  I've tried implementing solutions from other distributions without success:

  • The Haiku port approach: https://github.com/haikuports/haikuports/blob/master/dev-lang/nim/nim-2.2.4.recipe
  • The Arch PKGBUILD approach: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/nim/-/blob/main/PKGBUILD#L103

  I also found that another preexisting Copr repo used this solution to fix the "system.nim not found" issue:

  
  # Update config files with correct paths
  sed -i '1i lib = "%{_libdir}/nim/lib"' %{buildroot}%{_sysconfdir}/nim/nim.cfg
  sed -i '1i path = "%{_datadir}/nim"' %{buildroot}%{_sysconfdir}/nim/nim.cfg
  Run

  I appreciate any suggestions on how to resolve the "$nim" special import issue.

---

• planetis (orginal) [2025-08-03T01:57:33+02:00] view original

  nvm, I figured it out, will push a fix tomorrow.

---

• planetis (orginal) [2025-08-03T02:46:29+02:00] view original

  But in any case I would like to know if this step is still relevant:

  
    # Fix FS#50252, unusual placement of header files
    install -d "${pkgdir}/usr/include"
    cp -a "${pkgdir}/usr/lib/nim/"*.h "${pkgdir}/usr/include"
  Run

  And also:

  
    nim c --app:lib -d:createNimRtl -d:release nimrtl.nim
    install -m 755 lib/libnimrtl.so "${pkgdir}/usr/lib/libnimrtl.so"
  Run

  Thanks.

---

• planetis (orginal) [2025-08-03T14:55:59+02:00] view original

  The Nim nightlies packages are up and successfully compile Nimony and its documentation. You might need to download the rpm packages directly because of my experimentation without incrementing Release, copr has an older version cached. They include the necessary documentation without additional bloat, such as test directories.

  Two notes I would like to add:

  1. /usr/lib/nim must be hardcoded somewhere that I couldn't find. The sed -i method doesn't work and results in errors like "No such file or directory: /usr/lib/nim/doc/nimdoc.css." In Fedora, the library directory is /usr/lib64. So adding lib = "/usr/lib64/nim/lib" in nim.cfg is ignored.
  2. libnimrtl.so doesn't seem to be needed. In fact, I have never compiled it before.

---