Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Ross A. Laird]

I am using Ubuntu Gutsy, and I have (somewhat unintentionally) installed
both emacs22 and emacs23 (as emacs-snapshot-gtk) on my system. The
command 'emacs' (usr/bin/emacs) points to:

/etc/alternatives/emacs22

In turn, the above points back (to /usr/bin) to:

/usr/bin/emacs22

So, when I run 'emacs' from the command prompt or alt-f2, I get emacs22
instead of emacs-snapshot-gtk. (And, 22 complains about fonts in
.Xresources.)

I know that I can change these symlinks (to point to emacs-snapshot);
but before doing so, I wanted to check that I wouldn't be doing any
unintended harm by way of this change. I suppose I could uninstall
emacs22 as well (since I use 23), and I only ended up with 22 because of
an associated lisp install from apt; but again, before doing so, I
thought I would check.

Any cautions or suggestions?

Thanks.

Ross

-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[rustom]

On Sep 21, 2:45 am, r...@rosslaird.info (Ross A. Laird) wrote:
> I am using Ubuntu Gutsy, and I have (somewhat unintentionally) installed
> both emacs22 and emacs23 (as emacs-snapshot-gtk) on my system. The
> command 'emacs' (usr/bin/emacs) points to:
>
> /etc/alternatives/emacs22
>
> In turn, the above points back (to /usr/bin) to:
>
> /usr/bin/emacs22
>
> So, when I run 'emacs' from the command prompt or alt-f2, I get emacs22
> instead of emacs-snapshot-gtk. (And, 22 complains about fonts in
> .Xresources.)
>
> I know that I can change these symlinks (to point to emacs-snapshot);
> but before doing so, I wanted to check that I wouldn't be doing any
> unintended harm by way of this change. I suppose I could uninstall
> emacs22 as well (since I use 23), and I only ended up with 22 because of
> an associated lisp install from apt; but again, before doing so, I
> thought I would check.
>
> Any cautions or suggestions?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Ross
>
> --
> Ross A. Laird, PhDwww.rosslaird.info

Look up update-alternatives

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Ross A. Laird]

rustom <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> Look up update-alternatives

Yup, did that already. It shows:

  Selection    Alternative
-----------------------------------------------
          1    /usr/bin/vim.tiny
          2    /bin/ed
          3    /bin/nano
*         4    /usr/bin/emacs-snapshot
          5    /usr/bin/vim.basic
          6    /usr/bin/vim.gtk
 +        7    /usr/bin/vim.gnome
          8    /usr/bin/emacs22


So, I think the asterisk means that emacs-snapshot is the default. But
it's not what I get when I run 'emacs'.

Ross

-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[rustom]

On Sep 21, 6:21 am, r...@rosslaird.info (Ross A. Laird) wrote:
> rustom <rustompm...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Look up update-alternatives
>
> Yup, did that already. It shows:
>
>   Selection    Alternative
> -----------------------------------------------
>           1    /usr/bin/vim.tiny
>           2    /bin/ed
>           3    /bin/nano
> *         4    /usr/bin/emacs-snapshot
>           5    /usr/bin/vim.basic
>           6    /usr/bin/vim.gtk
>  +        7    /usr/bin/vim.gnome
>           8    /usr/bin/emacs22
>
> So, I think the asterisk means that emacs-snapshot is the default. But
> it's not what I get when I run 'emacs'.
>
> Ross
>
> --
> Ross A. Laird, PhDwww.rosslaird.info

This is obviously not the list for
$ update-alternatives --list emacs
Current choice is *
Highest priority is +

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Ross A. Laird]

rustom <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> This is obviously not the list for
> $ update-alternatives --list emacs...

Well, I didn't bring it up. I was just asking about symlinks between
emacs22 emacs23.

Anyway, I changed the links manually, so that 'emacs' now points to
'emacs-snapshot-gtk, and this has fixed my problem.

-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Ross A. Laird]

rustom <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> This is obviously not the list for
> $ update-alternatives --list emacs

Oh, wait, I see what you're getting at. I didn't know there was an
option besides the 'editor' option. (And I thought you were indicating
that the emacs mailing list was the wrong place to ask my question.
Sorry for the mixup.)

Anyway, --list emacs shows this:

/usr/bin/emacs-snapshot
/usr/bin/emacs22

Which should have, originally, loaded the correct binary. But it wasn't
doing it, obviously, but the symlinks has worked.

Thanks for the help.


-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Michael Ekstrand]

ross@rosslaird.info (Ross A. Laird) writes:
>> Look up update-alternatives
>
> Yup, did that already. It shows:
>
>   Selection    Alternative
> -----------------------------------------------
>           1    /usr/bin/vim.tiny
>           2    /bin/ed
>           3    /bin/nano
> *         4    /usr/bin/emacs-snapshot
>           5    /usr/bin/vim.basic
>           6    /usr/bin/vim.gtk
>  +        7    /usr/bin/vim.gnome
>           8    /usr/bin/emacs22
>
>
> So, I think the asterisk means that emacs-snapshot is the default. But
> it's not what I get when I run 'emacs'.

Run update-alternatives --config emacs.  That will let you choose your
emacs, then you can be sure.  I do not know the exact meaning of * and
+.

Also, though, this looks like the alternatives list for editor rather
than emacs -- `vim.basic' doesn't look like an alternative for `emacs'.

- Michale

-- 
mouse, n: A device for pointing at the xterm in which you want to type.
Confused by the strange files?  I cryptographically sign my messages.
For more information see <http://www.elehack.net/resources/gpg>.

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Ross A. Laird]

Thanks for the various tips. I ran 'update-alternatives --config emacs'
and this is what I got:

,----
| 
| There are 2 alternatives which provide `emacs'.
| 
|   Selection    Alternative
| -----------------------------------------------
|           1    /usr/bin/emacs-snapshot
|  +        2    /usr/bin/emacs22
| 
| Press enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number: 1
| Using '/usr/bin/emacs-snapshot' to provide 'emacs'.
`----

So, this seems to work nicely.

Thanks again for the help.

Ross

-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Tim X]

ross@rosslaird.info (Ross A. Laird) writes:

> I am using Ubuntu Gutsy, and I have (somewhat unintentionally) installed
> both emacs22 and emacs23 (as emacs-snapshot-gtk) on my system. The
> command 'emacs' (usr/bin/emacs) points to:
>
> /etc/alternatives/emacs22
>
> In turn, the above points back (to /usr/bin) to:
>
> /usr/bin/emacs22
>
> So, when I run 'emacs' from the command prompt or alt-f2, I get emacs22
> instead of emacs-snapshot-gtk. (And, 22 complains about fonts in
> .Xresources.)
>
> I know that I can change these symlinks (to point to emacs-snapshot);
> but before doing so, I wanted to check that I wouldn't be doing any
> unintended harm by way of this change. I suppose I could uninstall
> emacs22 as well (since I use 23), and I only ended up with 22 because of
> an associated lisp install from apt; but again, before doing so, I
> thought I would check.
>
> Any cautions or suggestions?

Note that I'm running debian rather than ubuntu, but I expect they are
similar enough for the following to hold true.
>
Have a look at man update-alternatives and try to use that command
to update the links for emacs etc. 

Also, keep emacs 22 installed. I *think* emacs-snapshot is not an
official ubuntu package. If you install emacs 22, its likely that apt
won't recognise/realise than emacs-snapshot is providing emacs/emacsen,
which are prerequisites for amny emacs packages. Having it installed
will ensure you can use all the deb elisp packages without any
problems. 

Note that one of the nice things about the way debian and its offspring
manage emacs is that you can run multiple versions at the same time. As
emacs-snapshot is a CVS snapshot, it is possible for some releases to be
less stable or even disfunctional in some ways from time to time. having
emacs 22 installed means that if there should be an issue with
emacs-snapshot, you can at least run emacs 22. 

Tim



-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au