running emacs without installing

running emacs without installing

[Kin Cho]

Hi,

I want to run emacs on a machine X without first installing
emacs.

machine X already has NFS access to another machine Y which has a
normal emacs installation.

By setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH, the emacs binary on Y launches ok on
X, but then exits with these errors:

Warning: arch-dependent data dir (/usr/local/libexec/emacs/21.3/i686-pc-linux-gnu/) does not exist.
Warning: arch-independent data dir (/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/etc/) does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/site-lisp' does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/leim' does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/lisp' does not exist.
Cannot open load file: term/x-win

If I use softlink the missing paths above to machine Y's paths,
then emacs starts normally.

I want to avoid the softlink on machine X.  Are there environment
variables to tell emacs where to find the data and lisp dirs?

Thanks.

-kin

Re: running emacs without installing

[Kai Grossjohann]

Kin Cho <ignore-this-prefixkin@techie.com> writes:

> I want to avoid the softlink on machine X.  Are there environment
> variables to tell emacs where to find the data and lisp dirs?

Yes.  EMACS_DATA and friends.  C-h i d m Emacs RET enters the Emacs
info file, m Environment RET goes to the right spot.  (You still have
to choose the first menu item, though.)

Kai

Re: running emacs without installing

[Kin Cho]

Kai,

Thanks for the pointers, but I still couldn't get it to work.

I set EMACSDATA to the value of data-directory on machine Y (with
normal emacs installation) relative to machine X, and EMACSPATH
to point at the site-lisp dir relative to machine X.

Warning: arch-dependent data dir (/usr/local/libexec/emacs/21.3/i686-pc-linux-gnu/) does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/site-lisp' does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp' does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/leim' does not exist.
Warning: Lisp directory `/usr/local/share/emacs/21.3/lisp' does not exist.
Cannot open load file: term/x-win

I see this string _EMACS_INTERNAL in the emacs executable, but
don't see documentation for it.  Could this be used somehow?

-kin

Kai Grossjohann <kai@emptydomain.de> writes:

> Kin Cho <ignore-this-prefixkin@techie.com> writes:
>
>> I want to avoid the softlink on machine X.  Are there environment
>> variables to tell emacs where to find the data and lisp dirs?
>
> Yes.  EMACS_DATA and friends.  C-h i d m Emacs RET enters the Emacs
> info file, m Environment RET goes to the right spot.  (You still have
> to choose the first menu item, though.)
>
> Kai

Re: running emacs without installing

[Kai Grossjohann]

Kin Cho <ignore-this-prefixkin@techie.com> writes:

> Thanks for the pointers, but I still couldn't get it to work.
>
> I set EMACSDATA to the value of data-directory on machine Y (with
> normal emacs installation) relative to machine X, and EMACSPATH
> to point at the site-lisp dir relative to machine X.

Did you set EMACSLOADPATH, too?

Kai

Re: running emacs without installing

[Kin Cho]

Kai Grossjohann <kai@emptydomain.de> writes:

> Kin Cho <ignore-this-prefixkin@techie.com> writes:
>
>> Thanks for the pointers, but I still couldn't get it to work.
>>
>> I set EMACSDATA to the value of data-directory on machine Y (with
>> normal emacs installation) relative to machine X, and EMACSPATH
>> to point at the site-lisp dir relative to machine X.
>
> Did you set EMACSLOADPATH, too?

I actually set the EMACSLOADPATH, not EMACSPATH.
The value I set is "/usr/share/emacs/21.2/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp"

-kin

Re: running emacs without installing

[Kai Grossjohann]

Kin Cho <ignore-this-prefixkin@techie.com> writes:

> Kai Grossjohann <kai@emptydomain.de> writes:
>
>> Did you set EMACSLOADPATH, too?
>
> I actually set the EMACSLOADPATH, not EMACSPATH.
> The value I set is
> "/usr/share/emacs/21.2/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp"

You'll have to add a zoo of other directories, such as
/usr/share/emacs/21.2/lisp and all its subdirs (except lisp/term, I
think).

Perhaps you can start a "normal" Emacs then have a look at load-path
and adjust accordingly.

Kai