Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

[Bourgoin, Mario]

How can the custom system be reliably used to add package repositories to Gnu Emacs 24.4 (and later)?  Since in 24.4, "package-archives" may be customized, that seems the way to go.

Apparently, that approach
... only works if the custom system controls package initialisation, which isn't the case in many of the popular configuration bundles.
Steve Purcell
                https://github.com/milkypostman/melpa/issues/2674
Steve wrote that people add the code:
(require 'package)
...
(add-to-list 'package-archives '(...))
(package-initialize)
...
to the Emacs initialization file so they can depend on "packages" being installed and initialized when later in the initialization file, they have
(require 'some-package)
(some-package-whatever-mode t)
My problem with this was that running "package-initialize" in my Emacs initialization file resulted in a recently-installed version of AUCTeX (11.88.4) being shadowed by an older built-in version of AUCTeX on load-path. (I was using Vincent Goulet's installer emacs-24.4-modified-1.exe from
http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/en/emacs/windows
and that problem may be due to AUCTeX initialization.)

So is there one best approach to use, or am I at the mercy of the Emacs configuration bundle?

Mario Bourgoin
Senior Data Scientist - Hopkinton
EMC CTD Symmetrix uCode
(508) 249-1297 Direct

Re: Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

[Stefan Monnier]

> How can the custom system be reliably used to add package repositories to
> Gnu Emacs 24.4 (and later)?

If it doesn't "just work", please report it as a bug.
There are indeed problems when using Custom for some of package.el's
customization variables, but for `package-archives' I am not aware of
any special problems.

> (package-initialize)
[...]
> (require 'some-package)
> (some-package-whatever-mode t)

None of those calls pays attention to package-archives, so if there's
a problem it must be elsewhere.

> My problem with this was that running "package-initialize" in my Emacs
> initialization file resulted in a recently-installed version of AUCTeX
> (11.88.4) being shadowed by an older built-in version of AUCTeX on
> load-path. (I was using Vincent Goulet's installer emacs-24.4-modified-1.exe
> from
> http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/en/emacs/windows
> and that problem may be due to AUCTeX initialization.)

This probably had nothing to do with your setting of package-archives.
And without knowing more about how your older installation fo AUCTeX is
added to load-path, there's not much we can say.


        Stefan

RE: Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

[Bourgoin, Mario]

Thank you for replying.

> If it doesn't "just work", please report it as a bug.

It does work, for which I'm glad. So I recommended it on melpa.org as an alternative to that they said to do, because their approach led to me having AUCTeX problems. But one of the melpa collaborators said that no, that doesn't work for all Emacs bundles.

> None of those calls pays attention to package-archives, so if there's a problem it must be elsewhere.

My AUCTeX problem had nothing to do with package-archives, except as a solution to my problem. Callingl package-initialize in my .emacs was very much the way I saw the problem. (I deleted all local initializations, re-installed Vincent Goulet's Emacs bundle, Tassilo Horn, an admin on the AUCTeX project, wrote to me on bug-auctex that "Indeed, the auctex initializer of the elpa package uses some hack which I actually don't understand."

--
Mario Bourgoin
Senior Data Scientist - Hopkinton
EMC CTD Symmetrix uCode
(508) 249-1297 Direct


-----Original Message-----
From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+mario.bourgoin=emc.com@gnu.org [mailto:help-gnu-emacs-bounces+mario.bourgoin=emc.com@gnu.org] On Behalf Of Stefan Monnier
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2015 9:01 PM
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

> How can the custom system be reliably used to add package repositories 
> to Gnu Emacs 24.4 (and later)?

If it doesn't "just work", please report it as a bug.
There are indeed problems when using Custom for some of package.el's customization variables, but for `package-archives' I am not aware of any special problems.

> (package-initialize)
[...]
> (require 'some-package)
> (some-package-whatever-mode t)

None of those calls pays attention to package-archives, so if there's a problem it must be elsewhere.

> My problem with this was that running "package-initialize" in my Emacs 
> initialization file resulted in a recently-installed version of AUCTeX
> (11.88.4) being shadowed by an older built-in version of AUCTeX on 
> load-path. (I was using Vincent Goulet's installer 
> emacs-24.4-modified-1.exe from 
> http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/en/emacs/windows
> and that problem may be due to AUCTeX initialization.)

This probably had nothing to do with your setting of package-archives.
And without knowing more about how your older installation fo AUCTeX is added to load-path, there's not much we can say.


        Stefan

Re: Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

[Emanuel Berg]

"Bourgoin, Mario" <Mario.Bourgoin@emc.com> writes:

> How can the custom system be reliably used to add
> package repositories to Gnu Emacs 24.4 (and later)?
> Since in 24.4, "package-archives" may be customized,
> that seems the way to go.

With "package-archives", do you mean what you get with
`package-list-packages'?

If so, just put something like this in an init file,
then add repositories as dotted pair list items as you
go along:

    (setq package-archives
          '(( "elpa" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
            ("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") ))

> Mario Bourgoin Senior Data Scientist - Hopkinton EMC
> CTD Symmetrix uCode (508) 249-1297 Direct

Hint: Put your signature immediately below two dashes
and a whitespace, i.e. on the line following a line
with only "-- ", as is described in section 4.3 of:

    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3676.txt

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

[gnuist006]

On Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at 8:21:25 AM UTC-7, Bourgoin, Mario wrote:
> How can the custom system be reliably used to add package repositories to Gnu Emacs 24.4 (and later)?  Since in 24.4, "package-archives" may be customized, that seems the way to go.
> 
> Apparently, that approach
> ... only works if the custom system controls package initialisation, which isn't the case in many of the popular configuration bundles.
> Steve Purcell
>                 https://github.com/milkypostman/melpa/issues/2674
> Steve wrote that people add the code:
> (require 'package)
> ...
> (add-to-list 'package-archives '(...))
> (package-initialize)
> ...
> to the Emacs initialization file so they can depend on "packages" being installed and initialized when later in the initialization file, they have
> (require 'some-package)
> (some-package-whatever-mode t)
> My problem with this was that running "package-initialize" in my Emacs initialization file resulted in a recently-installed version of AUCTeX (11.88.4) being shadowed by an older built-in version of AUCTeX on load-path. (I was using Vincent Goulet's installer emacs-24.4-modified-1.exe from
> http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/en/emacs/windows
> and that problem may be due to AUCTeX initialization.)
> 
> So is there one best approach to use, or am I at the mercy of the Emacs configuration bundle?
> 
> Mario Bourgoin
> Senior Data Scientist - Hopkinton
> EMC CTD Symmetrix uCode
> (508) 249-1297 Direct

I think your spacing is a little off in this stanza with dotted-pairs

If so, just put something like this in an init file,
then add repositories as dotted pair list items as you
go along:

    (setq package-archives
          '(( "elpa" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
            ("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") )) 

It should be

If so, just put something like this in an init file,
then add repositories as dotted pair list items as you
go along:

    (setq package-archives
          '(( "elpa" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
            ("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/")) )

if at all.

Bolega

Re: Adding Package Repositories in Gnu Emacs 24.4

[Emanuel Berg]

gnuist006@gmail.com writes:

> I think your spacing is a little off in this stanza
> with dotted-pairs
>
> If so, just put something like this in an init file,
> then add repositories as dotted pair list items as you
> go along:
>
>     (setq package-archives '(( "elpa" .
> "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") ("melpa" .
> "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") ))
>
> It should be
>
> If so, just put something like this in an init file,
> then add repositories as dotted pair list items as you
> go along:
>
>     (setq package-archives '(( "elpa" .
> "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") ("melpa" .
> "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/")) )
>
> if at all.

Say what? :O

If you are not a crazy person, stop behaving like one,
either people will think you are crazy, or that is
what you will become by acting like one, and either
is bad.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573