Emacs21 settings in Debian ?

Emacs21 settings in Debian ?

[Vignoble101]

Good morning all.

I started my Linux adventure a couple of years ago with a Mandrake 
distro. It was providing a version of Emacs - I wouldn't be able to tell 
you which one - which was just doing quite well !

I spent a whole summer experiencing Java coding using that very nice and 
efficient tool this newsgroup is dedicated to. Probably some would argue 
that there is nothing such as a real Java IDE, but I never could get 
along well with the idea that I need to purchase a brand new computer 
with gigs of memory and megahertz for the sake of typing nice 
anti-aliased characters that will never fit to my screen among all those 
toolbars, icons and funky starving-for-pixels GUIs.
As Vi sounded a bit raw to me, I went for Emacs.
The tutorial was perfect, but too short. So I bought myself an O'Reilly 
book on that subject. Everything was crystal clear and Emacs was 
responding perfectly to any command.

So, as my Linux adventure was going on, I was lead to try different 
distros (mainly Redhat & Fedora), got hacked in and messed up, and had 
to leave my coding activity apart for getting a little bit more involved 
into that networking and admin stuff.

Anyways... now my choice is made and I stick to Debian :)
Now here comes the pain. In its Debian pre-compiled version, Emacs21 
does not display colors. The keystrokes sound different that what I was 
used to. For instance, copying a block with C-space and M-w does not 
work. So I have to use C-space / C-w , yank back, and yank again at the 
place I want to paste. A bit annoying...
I will not make a long list of all my observations, but I must say that 
I'm pretty confused.

So far I have not been very involved in my research to solve this.
I've googled around to see if there was a way to get the color back. All 
I could find was how to change the existing color settings...
So I've tryed to re-install my Emacs21 from the source and could not 
even get it to start !

So basically, I'm into big trouble. I don't no if the keystrokes pain in 
the ass comes along with the new flavour...?
I must admit I don't really want to get involved into elisp hacking, but 
maybe I should give a try on how to configure Emacs properly before 
compiling the sources.

Anyway guys, any help or suggestion is more than welcome, as I would 
like to get back to the scene and make the most of my proud console !

GNU rules !!

Vince.

Re: Emacs21 settings in Debian ?

[Tim X]

Vignoble101 <vince101@free.fr> writes:

> Good morning all.
> 
> I started my Linux adventure a couple of years ago with a Mandrake
> distro. It was providing a version of Emacs - I wouldn't be able to
> tell you which one - which was just doing quite well !
> 
> I spent a whole summer experiencing Java coding using that very nice
> and efficient tool this newsgroup is dedicated to. Probably some would
> argue that there is nothing such as a real Java IDE, but I never could
> get along well with the idea that I need to purchase a brand new
> computer with gigs of memory and megahertz for the sake of typing nice
> anti-aliased characters that will never fit to my screen among all
> those toolbars, icons and funky starving-for-pixels GUIs.
> As Vi sounded a bit raw to me, I went for Emacs.
> The tutorial was perfect, but too short. So I bought myself an
> O'Reilly book on that subject. Everything was crystal clear and Emacs
> was responding perfectly to any command.
> 
> So, as my Linux adventure was going on, I was lead to try different
> distros (mainly Redhat & Fedora), got hacked in and messed up, and had
> to leave my coding activity apart for getting a little bit more
> involved into that networking and admin stuff.
> 
> Anyways... now my choice is made and I stick to Debian :)
> Now here comes the pain. In its Debian pre-compiled version, Emacs21
> does not display colors. The keystrokes sound different that what I
> was used to. For instance, copying a block with C-space and M-w does
> not work. So I have to use C-space / C-w , yank back, and yank again
> at the place I want to paste. A bit annoying...
> I will not make a long list of all my observations, but I must say
> that I'm pretty confused.
> 
> So far I have not been very involved in my research to solve this.
> I've googled around to see if there was a way to get the color
> back. All I could find was how to change the existing color settings...
> So I've tryed to re-install my Emacs21 from the source and could not
> even get it to start !
> 
> So basically, I'm into big trouble. I don't no if the keystrokes pain
> in the ass comes along with the new flavour...?
> I must admit I don't really want to get involved into elisp hacking,
> but maybe I should give a try on how to configure Emacs properly
> before compiling the sources.
> 
> Anyway guys, any help or suggestion is more than welcome, as I would
> like to get back to the scene and make the most of my proud console !
> 
> GNU rules !!
> 

There is nothing 'special' or different with Debian's version of
Emacs. One thing which may be tripping you up is that your last emacs
was probably version 20 and now version 21 has some slight
differences. However, from memory, there have been no key binding
changes. Debian does not change this either.

The colours not being there means your probably not running with
font-lock mode enabled. Try typeing M-x font-lock-mode and see if that
makes a difference. 

If your still using your old .emacs file, I would suggest starting
from scratch. Debian is the most emacs friendly and supportinve Linux
distro I've ever used and a lot of the configuration and installation
of packages I use to do on other distros is simply an apt-get install
away. 

Start with an empty .emacs file and run M-x customize and go through
the various groups, switching on/off whatever you do/don't need. Then
see where yu are and determine if you need to do anyting else to get
the environment you like.

HTH

Tim


-- 
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you 
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!

Re: Emacs21 settings in Debian ?

[Rob Wilco]

> I started my Linux adventure a couple of years ago with a Mandrake 
> distro. It was providing a version of Emacs - 

Ah ! With your Mandrake distro, was your emacs displaying antialiased 
fonts ?

I am having a hard time displaying antia alised fonts with deban/ubuntu 
and I have a vague remembrance that my mandrake used to do that.


> For instance, copying a block with C-space and M-w does not work
It works on my ubuntu. I installed emacs with apt-get install emacs21.

I move the cursor to the beginning of a word, type C-space then right 
five times, then M-w then move somewhere else, and type C-y. The 
previously copied characters are pasted.


> I've googled around to see if there was a way to get the color back. 
Have you tried M-x font-lock-mode. I also put those lines in my .emacs 
to get convenient colors for the background and main font.

(set-face-background 'default "DarkSlateGray")
(set-face-foreground 'default "wheat")

It works on my system (emacs on the console and emacs in X-window)

I don't have your problems and It work that way out of the box.

Maybe you can check that you do not have a previous .emacs lying in your 
home.

Cheers,