The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has rejected a proposal to centralize per-user environment variables under systemd for Fedora 45. Contributor Faeiz Mahrus suggested moving from shell-specific RC files to systemd's environment-generator for better cross-shell compatibility. The vote saw six members against and three abstentions, citing concerns over systemd-less environments like containers.
Faeiz Mahrus proposed shifting the management of per-user environment variables, such as adding ~/.local/bin and ~/bin to the $PATH, from shell-specific files like ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc to systemd's functionality. This would use drop-in configuration files in /etc/skel/.config/environment.d/, applying settings to all user processes regardless of the shell, including alternatives like Fish, Nushell, Xonsh, and Dash, which currently lack equivalent RC files. Without this, users switching shells lose access to their local binaries. FESCo, which reviews major changes for Fedora releases, voted down the proposal with six against and three abstentions. Neal Gompa (ngompa) objected that containers often lack systemd, making the change disruptive for Fedora-based images. Kevin Fenzi (kevin) found the proposal unconvincing. Despite the rejection, the door remains open. Michel Lind (salimma) encouraged resubmission after addressing systemd-less environments and providing concrete configuration examples. As reported by Phoronix.