------------------ High-level summary: ------------------ If Emacs is started with no ~/.emacs.d/elpa directory, #'package-initialize is not called, and I can't programatically work with packages. ---------- Motivation ---------- I like my init file to completely set up Emacs: I want to be able to start with an empty ~/.emacs.d/ move my init file into it, and start up Emacs. To do that, I've had (previously to Emacs 27), this as the preamble to my init file: (require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")) (package-initialize) (unless (package-installed-p 'use-package) (package-refresh-contents) (package-install 'use-package)) This sets up package.el with the ability to use melpa, then installs use-package, for use in the rest of my init file. This has worked fine. But I recently upgraded my Emacs to a newer version built from source, using commit 766b057e41df7316808ec7658836fda75facda75. As part of that, I've read up on the early init file. My understanding is that users should no longer call #'package-initialize in their init files. This is supported by, if I do have a call to #'package-initialize, starting Emacs gives me a warning "Warning (package): Unnecessary call to ‘package-initialize’ in init file". So I figured I would remove it. But I quickly ran into a problem, or at least an area for better documentation. ------------------------- Reproduction instructions ------------------------- A minimal init file that shows my problem is here: (require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")) (message "use-package is installed: %s" (package-installed-p 'use-package)) Here's how I delete the elpa directory, and then start up Emacs: $ rm -r ~/.emacs.d/elpa $ src/emacs Upon doing so, here's the error I get: Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/zck/.emacs.d/init.el’: error: package.el is not yet initialized! To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the cause of the error in your initialization file. Start Emacs with the ‘--debug-init’ option to view a complete error backtrace. --------------------------- Investigation & speculation --------------------------- I started looking around for documentation, and found this interesting comment in simple.el's function #'command-line: ;; If any package directory exists, initialize the package system. This seems to be the cause. I'm not sure why the package system shouldn't be initialized if there is no package directory; I want to be able to do package operations even if I'm starting with no package directory. You have to start somewhere. Thanks! ------------------ System information ------------------ In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.18.9) of 2018-05-07 built on zck-laptop Repository revision: 766b057e41df7316808ec7658836fda75facda75 Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11804000 System Description: Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS Recent messages: Checking for load-path shadows...done Auto-saving... Overwrite mode enabled in current buffer is undefined Undo! [3 times] user-error: No further undo information C-c k is undefined Quit C-x C-g is undefined Mark set Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS NOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 THREADS LCMS2 Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Fundamental Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t buffer-read-only: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils cl-extra pp cl-print package-x thingatpt help-fns radix-tree help-mode time-date elec-pair warnings package easymenu epg-config url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache json map url-vars seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 114821 11707) (symbols 48 21397 0) (miscs 40 99 151) (strings 32 34316 1830) (string-bytes 1 888700) (vectors 16 17166) (vector-slots 8 524482 10750) (floats 8 54 84) (intervals 56 292 144) (buffers 992 15) (heap 1024 44657 1840))