Re: place of .els

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Gary Wessle <phddas@yahoo.com> writes:

> Hi
>
> I want to use extview.el which is not supplied by debian/testing, so I
> downloaded it and now what? where do I place it to be safe? the
> load-path has lots and lots of locations, should I place it somewhere
> under /usr/local/...?
>
> thanks

It depends on whether it is just you who wants to run it or other
users as well. The easiest way to do it is put the .el file in
/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and then make sure that directory is
in your load path. If it is not, add the following to your .emacs

(add-to-list 'load-path "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp")

If you have multiple users and run multiple versions of emacs and the
code needs compiling into .elc, you will need to mirror the approach
used by Debian to get the same easy multi-user/multi-version support.
However, I'd be more inclined to remove all but one version of emacs
and then tell people what to add to their .emacs file if they want
that bit of code. 

Personally, I prefer to put all my own locally non-debian packaged
stuff in /usr/local, which I create in its own disk partition. I also
do /home in its own partition. Then, if I decide I want to do a fresh
install or if for some reason I wanted to switch to a different linux
distro, I can do a format on the other patitions to ensure they are
clean before the install and leave or my own hand installed and
configured packages alone. I also find it makes backups easier -
generally, I don't bother doing backups on partitions which only
contain software installed from a distro as you may as well just do a
re-install if required - it can often be faster than restoring from a
backup, especially if it uses incremental backups. 

Tim

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au