Failing creating dev shell for `rnote`: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system

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1

I’m trying to create a devshell for rnote.

However, I’m always hitting this error, if I try to build this project:

(rnote:252470): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 02:07:53.736: g_settings_schema_source_lookup: assertion 'source != NULL' failed

(rnote:252470): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 02:07:53.830: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system
Trace/breakpoint trap      (core dumped) cargo run --bin rnote

and I have absolutely no idea why this happens.

What I tried

Use the upstream rnote package

# `stable`: is declared in my flake as `stable.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-25.11";`
> nix develop stable
> cargo run --bin rnote
...
(rnote:252470): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 02:07:53.736: g_settings_schema_source_lookup: assertion 'source != NULL' failed

(rnote:252470): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 02:07:53.830: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system
Trace/breakpoint trap      (core dumped) cargo run --bin rnote

# or using the justfile
> just run-ui
_mesonbuild/target/debug/rnote
   0.000059651s DEBUG rnote: .. tracing subscriber initialized.

(rnote:257117): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 02:11:48.969: g_settings_schema_source_lookup: assertion 'source != NULL' failed

(rnote:257117): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 02:11:49.063: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system
error: Recipe `run-ui` was terminated on line 216 by signal 5

Using a custom `flake

See my branch where I added the flake.nix:

> nix develop
> cargo run --bin rnote
(rnote:257117): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 02:11:48.969: g_settings_schema_source_lookup: assertion 'source != NULL' failed

(rnote:257117): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 02:11:49.063: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system
error: Recipe `run-ui` was terminated on line 216 by signal 5

> just run-ui
sh: line 1: lsb_release: command not found
_mesonbuild/target/debug/rnote
   0.000067880s DEBUG rnote: .. tracing subscriber initialized.

(rnote:257672): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 02:13:31.287: g_settings_schema_source_lookup: assertion 'source != NULL' failed

(rnote:257672): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 02:13:31.379: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system
error: Recipe `run-ui` was terminated on line 216 by signal 5

I also tried to add wrapGAppsHook4 to the packages list of pkgs.mkShell without any success.

I’m out of ideas

2

The Meson build system processes the gschema template file in the rnote repository.

If you just run cargo run —bin x, then the gschema file is not populated nor compiled. So when the app runs it rightly complains that it does not exist.

I am not sure how to get this to work fully in an automated way in a devShell environment.

When I done the Meson build the populated files appeared in _mesonbuild/crates/rnote-ui/data and I could compile them with glib-compile-schemas and then point the env var GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR to that directory. Then I got a different error due to a missing gtk4 schema.