I have been using fpc/Lazarus on Windows and Raspbian Buster for years and it has worked just fine.

Now I have installed fpc 3.0.4 / lazarus 2.0.8 in Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS on a repurposed HP notebook (8440w).
It seemed to work OK until I retrieved code via SVN that has worked on Windows and Raspbian in order to build for Linux on Intel hardware.

When I load the project all is OK, but when I try to compile I get to an error:

Error: resource compiler "fpcres" not found, switching to external mode

But fpres is built during installation of fpc/lazarus and the binary is placed in ~/bin, which usually is available on path.

So it seems like on this Ubuntu machine the existing ~/bin dir does not result in it being placed on PATH and therefore Lazarus is unable to use it.

What can be done to fix this?

Notice:
-------
I access the Ubuntu Mate desktop via VNC from my Windows 10 main computer because the notebook is not used actively (it sits in a cupboard).
THis way of operation has worked just fine with Lazarus on Raspbian (Raspberry Pi) for years, why not on Ubuntu 18?

And the /home/bosse/.profile file contains this:

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

So it should automatically add ~/bin to PATH, right? But it is not happening, PATH does not have /home/bosse/bin at the beginning....

Any help appreciated!

Not every shell uses /home/bosse/.profile.

How do you start lazarus? Maybe this starter uses its own environment.

[...]

Mattias

I always start Lazarus from the application menu (or a shortcut to that desktop file placed on the desktop itself.

The content of the desktop file in use is (my logon username is bosse):

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Lazarus IDE 2.0.8
Terminal=false
Name=Lazarus 2.0.8
Exec=/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus
--pcp=/home/bosse/.lazarus_2.0.8 %f
Type=Application
Icon=/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/images/ide_icon48x48.png Categories=Application;IDE;Development;GTK;GUIDesigner;Programming; NoDisplay=false
Keywords=editor;Pascal;IDE;FreePascal;fpc;Design;Designer;

This file is visible on the desktop as an icon as well as on the menu subsection "programming".

As I said I access the Ubuntu machine via VNC so I can work on it simultaneously as doing other things on Windows.

NOTE:
I had a problem with the Terminal application, which also does not get the ~/bin dir added to its path even though .profile says so...

Turned out (after asking on the ubuntu forum) that the Mate and Gnome Terminal programs both have an Edit/Profile settings where one can set the terminal to "run command as a login shell"
When I checked that the terminal after a restart had ~/bin as the first entry in PATH.

So I wonder if maybe Lazarus has a similar setting?

Or maybe VNC server does?
(Of course that is off-topic here, but still if someone "just knows" maybe a global solution might be possible)

Bo Berglund wrote

Comment=Lazarus IDE 2.0.8 Terminal=false Name=Lazarus 2.0.8 Exec=/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus

Set this to
/bin/bash -l home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus --pcp=/home/bosse/.lazarus_2.0.8 %f

and .profile will be read.

I have a similar issue, and that is how I solved it.

So I wonder if maybe Lazarus has a similar setting?

No, you must set the options on the desktop/menu entry that starts lazarus.

Or maybe VNC server does?

You must run lazarus not by directly running the startlazarus, but by invoking the shell with -l option. You can create a script for it.

Michael.

Something must have gone wrong here...
I changed the desktop file but no Lazarus showed up so I tried to run the Exec command from a terminal instead:

bosse at polaris-ubuntu:~$ /bin/bash -l
/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus
--pcp=/home/bosse/.lazarus_2.0.8 %f

/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus:
/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus: cannot execute binary file

You must omit the %f on the command line.

What happens if you do

/bin/bash -l -c '/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus --pcp=/home/bosse/.lazarus_2.0.8'

Michael.

Now Lazarus starts up with the project loaded and the compile and build operations work OK! :)

How can I change the desktop files so they also work? I tried to set the Exec like this (single line of course, newsreader wraps..):

Exec=/bin/bash -l -c '/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus --pcp=/home/bosse/.lazarus_2.0.8'

Then Lazarus starts OK but again throws the error due to /home/bosse/bin missing from PATH.

It seems like if one could set PATH correctly to include ~/bin for the VNC environment all would be solved...

The VNC server is a service and is started via this file: /etc/systemd/system/vncserver at .service

[Unit]
Description=Systemd VNC server startup script for Ubuntu 18.04 After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
User=bosse
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i &> /dev/null ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1680x1040 :%i PIDFile=/home/bosse/.vnc/%H:%i.pid
ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And I think that the content of this file is used as well: /home/bosse/.vnc/xstartup

#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop: unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup [ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
x-window-manager &
mate-session &

Finally, the VNC I am using was installed via
apt install vnc4server

Strange that I never ever saw this problem on Raspbian Buster on an RPi4...

Where is it added to the PATH ? Normally, if you do this in .bashrc or .profile, the -l option forces bash to pick it up.

It seems like if one could set PATH correctly to include ~/bin for the VNC environment all would be solved...

No, that won't help.

Because you don't know with what environment the desktop items are started. My guess is these are started with a minimal environment.

That is what I experienced, and the above is how I solved it. (Instead of bash I am using tcsh though...)

Michael.

It is in ~/.profile

These are the active lines in that file:

# if running bash
if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then

    # include .bashrc if it exists
    if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
        . "$HOME/.bashrc"
    fi

fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

So whenever .profile is loaded the ~/bin dir gets prepended to PATH...

Soo strange that it is not working...

Take care: if either of
~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login,
exist, then .profile is not read.

Michael.

Well that is not the case either...

~$ ls -la .bas*
-rw------- 1 bosse bosse 20005 maj 25 21:06 .bash_history -rw-r--r-- 1 bosse bosse 220 apr 10 15:22 .bash_logout -rw-r--r-- 1 bosse bosse 4039 apr 26 08:56 .bashrc

But I have been mixing up the desktop files.... :(

It turns out there are *three* sets of desktop files in use, they are located in:

~/.local/share/applications (user specific use by the Mate menu)

~/Desktop (shortcuts shown on the user desktop)

/usr/share/applications (global use by the Mate menu)

I had been manipulating the ~/Desktop files and then tested from the menu and found no change in behavior...

But in fact if I edit and use the *same* desktop file it shows that your suggestion is working!

So if I have this desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications it will work from the menu too:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Lazarus IDE 2.0.8
Terminal=false
Name=Lazarus 2.0.8
#Entry below in order to secure setting up PATH correctly on start Exec=/bin/bash -l -c '/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/startlazarus --pcp=/home/bosse/.lazarus_2.0.8'
Type=Application
Icon=/home/bosse/dev/lazarus/2.0.8/images/ide_icon48x48.png Categories=Application;IDE;Development;GTK;GUIDesigner;Programming; NoDisplay=false
Keywords=editor;Pascal;IDE;FreePascal;fpc;Design;Designer;

Thanks a million for your help!!!!

Glad you got it working !

Michael.