From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Question on updating to 29.1 Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 09:23:20 +0300 Message-ID: <83leegg4o7.fsf@gnu.org> References: <7434968f-40b1-ac55-c692-56a9b1c6a547@magnaspesmeretrix.org> <87350qj8fi.fsf@posteo.net> <83cyzthls8.fsf@gnu.org> <59e49b84-6a10-8c02-e990-34589deb8432@vodafonemail.de> <83r0o8g6aa.fsf@gnu.org> <8b321ed5-89a9-fa19-d819-2b31cce464aa@magnaspesmeretrix.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="27525"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sat Aug 12 08:23:31 2023 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1qUi26-0006x8-B0 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 12 Aug 2023 08:23:30 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1] helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qUi1Y-0007Bz-Aq; Sat, 12 Aug 2023 02:22:56 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qUi1S-00079z-W8 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 12 Aug 2023 02:22:52 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1qUi1S-0001Yx-NY for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sat, 12 Aug 2023 02:22:50 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From:Date: mime-version; bh=AL/94Xv3tdzCRbsoR+wG48SvccMiAnV/6uLvOXilEN8=; b=N4dCU0EeQDnr iJivXoV7jEUYXqrgZxxv3MixzS19jvCPxsip2Q9mgCGf2WJkS3Qu3gcmmRwCFD05pbaGGN+sRHpV7 UFEyOUL+XF9AKfLNAiH79lTOdFvqZ0in5x/g+25QB0bgTPnZVuaOnkGB1NpH1MbtgGP1n28KshQ8E TT8/MC73Rw6TcxFzatl1L3gHBmwfejRwj4C6ig4/sAXNOc0R3W3vXNk6a2F0loIDR7iVJqBa++ppV rpoz74C/p4wXzdr+wuPV0rhawtDuE97lwbJvDC/hr4qS9ySKNoP+nBZgdqnTaAViS8YV9ET98lLk0 gjkoCGYmcCZTrfoijtL8Sw==; In-Reply-To: <8b321ed5-89a9-fa19-d819-2b31cce464aa@magnaspesmeretrix.org> (message from PierGianLuca on Sat, 12 Aug 2023 08:08:59 +0200) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:144769 Archived-At: > Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2023 08:08:59 +0200 > From: PierGianLuca > > Hi Eli, > > > The Emacs installation method is designed in a way that allows you to > > have several Emacs versions installed on the same system. Only one of > > them, the one you installed the last, is invoked by the name "emacs", > > but all the others can be invoked by their numbered names, as in > > "emacs-28.2" etc. An installed version of Emacs will only be removed > > if you explicitly run "make uninstall" in the build directory of that > > version. > > > Thank you, this is very useful information. Wouldn't this be useful in the INSTALL files? or maybe it's already there. I might want to keep one previous version just in case, but no other. This is standard GNU structure of Make targets, every GNU project follows that. You can find the list of standard targets in the node "Standard Targets" of the "GNU Coding Standards" document. I find no reason to duplicate that information in Emacs, as that would waste space for no good reason, and will not be discoverable enough to make the difference anyway. Stuff that "just works" doesn't need any prominent documentation in the first place. > Should I do "make uninstall" for the previous version after I install the new version, or before, or it doesn't matter? It's up to you. I personally never uninstall old Emacs versions, but that's because having them makes it easy for me, as an Emacs developer, to check how old versions behaved in specific situations and when did a specific bug start to happen. Another consideration is that if you upgrade your system, some old versions might not run anymore, at which time they are just using up disk space, and should probably be removed. (In this regard my hat off to Microsoft, because I still have a Windows port of Emacs 21.4, built 17 years ago, running just fine on my current MS-Windows system, after several OS migrations, whereas Trisquel GNU/Linux, for example, tends to break binaries compiled with older OS versions upon every significant OS upgrade.)