TITLE: GNU Emacs 2
LFS-VERSION: All
AUTHOR: Andreas Klauer <andykl@epost.de>
SYNOPSIS:
Downloading and Installing GNU Emacs 2
HINT:
I. What it is
---------------
All information you need can be found at the GNU Emacs page:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html
There is also a FAQ available:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-faq.text
Here is a quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emacs is the extensible, customizable, self-documenting real-time display
editor. If this seems to be a bit of a mouthful, an easier explanation is Emacs
is a text editor and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp
(``elisp'', for short), a dialect of the Lisp programming language with
extensions to support text editing.
Some of the features of GNU Emacs include:
o Content sensitive major modes for a wide variety of file types, from plain
text to source code to HTML files.
o Complete online documentation, including a tutorial for new users.
o Highly extensible through the Emacs Lisp language.
o Support for many languages and their scripts, including all the European
``Latin'' scripts, Russian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai,
Vietnamese, Lao, Ethiopian, and some Indian scripts. (Sorry, Mayan
hieroglyphs are not supported.)
o A large number of extensions which add other functionality. The GNU Emacs
distribution includes many extensions; many others are available
separately -- even a web browser.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note that this hint doesn't cover the extensions, just because there are
far too many of them - Emacs is an operating system that comes with an editor
included ;o)
If you want any extensions, visit the GNU Emacs page.
II. Where to get & What to get
-------------------------------
You can get all these files on ftp.gnu.org or on one of its mirrors
(visit http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html for a complete mirror list)
Required: emacs-20.7.tar.gz (around 15 Megabytes)
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/emacs-20.7.tar.gz
Note: If there is a newer version available, take the newer version -
if this hint does no longer work with a newer version, please send me
an E-Mail, so that I can update it: andykl@epost.de
Description: This package contains the Emacs editor ;o)
It comes with a very good README and INSTALL - File, which should
make this hint unneccessary; but the old emacs hint wasn't good
enough to help a newbie out.
Optional: leim-20.7.tar.gz (around 3.3 Megabytes) [requires X11]
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/leim-20.7.tar.gz
Note: The package should have the same version number as the emacs package.
Description: LEIM stands for Libraries of Emacs Input Methods.
This package supports Chinese & Japanese and other input methods.
You should read the INSTALL file that comes with the emacs package
and the README that is included in this package if you are
interested in it.
Optional: intlfonts-1.2.tar.gz (around 25 Megabytes) [requires X11]
Note: This package can be installed after the installation of Emacs.
Description: It contains a whole bunch of X11 fonts - Chinese, Japanese, but
also European (Greek etc.) and other fonts.
Get it if you plan to use Emacs in X11 and want support for those
languages. Otherwise, Emacs will print hollow boxes if there is
a font missing.
III. How to install it
----------------------
I unpacked my sources in /usr/src and was root all the time during the
installation. You can put the sources somewhere else and don't need to be root
when installing, just as you like.
But please don't forget: When I'm talking of /usr/src, I mean the directory
where your sources are located.
If you encounter weird problems without being root,
switching to root may help - I don't know exactly
where root privileges are required and where not.
1. Unpack the emacs tarball:
> cd /usr/src
> tar xvfz /usr/src/emacs-20.7.tar.gz
This will create a directory /usr/src/emacs-20.7/ and put the emacs sources
in it.
You probably should read /usr/src/emacs-20.7/README and
/usr/src/emacs-20.7/INSTALL now.
2. If you decided to download LEIM, unpack it:
> cd /usr/src
> tar xvfz /usr/src/leim-20.7.tar.gz
The LEIM package will create a directory /usr/src/emacs-20.7/leim.
It will be automatically included in the Emacs installation.
3. Run the Emacs configure script
> cd /usr/src/emacs-20.7
Please read the configure help first:
> ./configure --help
This gives you a list of all possible options.
Please choose the options that fit your needs.
[ Optimization note:
If you want gcc to be run with any optimization flags,
you should run
> export CFLAGS='-yourflags'
now.
I used: (may not work on your system)
> export CFLAGS='-O2 -march=i686'
]
I used the following command (may not work on your system):
> ./configure i686-unknown-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --with-gcc --with-x
This will install Emacs in /usr/* and not in /usr/local/* and also use GCC
and enable the Emacs X11 interface.
I also specified my host type: i686-unknown-linux-gnu
Information on available host types can be found in:
/usr/src/emacs-20.7/etc/MACHINES
If unsure, just use the following:
> ./configure --prefix=/usr
Emacs will then be installed in your /usr directory.
[3b. This part is hard for newbies :o( ]
The installation instructions that come with the emacs package now recommend
to look at /usr/src/emacs-20.7/lisp/paths.el.
The file contains paths to various external programs (sendmail p.e.).
If those are not correct and you want emacs to be able to use them, you
should modify the file site-init.el (not the paths.el file).
For further information read /usr/src/emacs-20.7/INSTALL
In most cases (especially on your LFS system), the paths in paths.el should
be correct - it looks for the binaries in the /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin
directories and checks all 'usual' locations.
It is quite safe not to look at paths.el, unless you've installed programs
like sendmail in unusual locations.
[ Note: There are a few more steps you could do if you want, such as adding
special termcap entries and so on.
I didn't need any of those, so I just say that the normal user won't
need them; but you may take a look at the INSTALL file if interested ]
4. Compile Emacs
Now this should be quite easy:
> cd /usr/src/emacs-20.7
> make
If the configure - script ran without errors, the make shouldn't produce any,
too.
If make exits with an error message, it may be due to some optimization flags
that you may have added in Part 3. Then try to remove them and run configure
and make again.
If that doesn't solve the problem, send it to the lfs-apps mailing list to
get help.
The compilation took 10 Minutes on my PII-233.
5. Install Emacs
Just run:
> make install
This installs Emacs in the directories you specified in the configure call
(Default: /usr/local/..., with --prefix=/usr in /usr/... and so on)
prefix/bin now contains:
emacs, etags, ctags, b2m, emacs-client, rcs-checkin
(Sorry, I'm too lazy to describe them, go to www.gnu.org, there's the
manual, FAQ, just everything)
prefix/share/emacs/VERSION/ contains the emacs lisp library and other emacs
files.
There also should be manpages installed - read the INSTALL file for further
information.
If 'make install' was successful, you can delete the sources if you want to:
> rm -R /usr/src/emacs-20.7
For the people who decided not to install the intlfonts:
Congratulations, you've done it!
If this hint helped you out, I'd be glad if you'd send a short note to
andykl@epost.de, so that I know that this work had some use ;o)
For all others:
6. Install intlfonts
You'll have to unpack the intlfonts package first.
> cd /usr/src
> tar xvfz intlfonts-1.2.tar.gz
This will create the /usr/src/intlfonts-1.2/ directory.
Go into this directory and run the configure script:
[If you used a --prefix= parameter when installing emacs,
you probably should use the same prefix option here!]
Note: You may also want to take a look on ./configure --help first;
Type1/TTF Fonts are not installed by default - if your X
supports those, you may want to install them, too.
> cd /usr/src/intlfonts-1.2
> ./configure
The fonts will be installed in the prefix directory you specified
(Default: /usr/local): /prefix/share/emacs/fonts.
To do this, you need to run:
> make install
Now, the X server needs to know about the new fonts.
This is done by adding /prefix/share/emacs/fonts to the known font paths.
I did it by adding FontPath "/usr/share/emacs/fonts/" to my XF86Config file.
But this depends on how you configured your X. You may want to add
xset +fp /usr/share/emacs/fonts/ in some .xinitrc Files instead.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations, you now have a running emacs.
Manuals, FAQs, How-to-Configure and similar stuff can be found at:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs.
I hope this hint helped you a little :)
Andreas Klauer
Also known as: menaures@UNItopia.de
E-Mail: andykl@epost.de
If you manage to get the Emacs Webbrowser running and you speak german,
visit www.unitopia.de ;o)