Changing site-lisp without installing it

Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Spencer Baugh]

I want to start using site-lisp at my site.  But I'm not sure how to
hack on changed versions of the site-lisp, without installing it.

What would be ideal for me is this:

- There is a normal, installed Emacs, with a site-lisp directory.  My
  users run this and get the installed site-lisp directory.  All normal.

- I run this same Emacs binary in some way, I don't know how, to make it
  use a replacement site-lisp directory, instead of the installed one,
  so that I can hack on the site-lisp, without having to build a new
  Emacs or change the actual installed site-lisp directory.

Now that I say all this, I guess the obvious thing to do is simply pass

--no-site-lisp --directory my/local/changed/site-lisp

and then hack away.

But will that behave correctly?  Are there any footguns there?

(Does anyone actually use site-lisp?  It seems a little under-explored,
but I think it will be really useful at my site, so that people can
easily run "emacs -q" to get an emacs with only the site configuration
which should help with debugging their problems)

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Emanuel Berg]

Spencer Baugh wrote:

> I want to start using site-lisp at my site.

site = multi-user computer system, settings in site-lisp will
be shared across users.

> What would be ideal for me is this:
>
> - There is a normal, installed Emacs, with a site-lisp
>   directory. My users run this and get the installed
>   site-lisp directory. All normal.
>
> - I run this same Emacs binary in some way, I don't know
>   how, to make it use a replacement site-lisp directory,
>   instead of the installed one, so that I can hack on the
>   site-lisp, without having to build a new Emacs or change
>   the actual installed site-lisp directory.
>
> Now that I say all this, I guess the obvious thing to do is simply pass
>
> --no-site-lisp --directory my/local/changed/site-lisp
>
> and then hack away.
>
> But will that behave correctly?  Are there any footguns there?

Many, instead just add a file to the original path with
whatever settings you wish to enforce across the realm ...

> (Does anyone actually use site-lisp? It seems a little
> under-explored [...]

Collective settings, I don't think that idea is so useful.
Whose .emacs are we gonna base it on, the "site" boss?

Maybe one can share other stuff that makes more sense ...

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Spencer Baugh <sbaugh@janestreet.com>
> Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2023 17:14:51 -0400
> 
> 
> I want to start using site-lisp at my site.  But I'm not sure how to
> hack on changed versions of the site-lisp, without installing it.
> 
> What would be ideal for me is this:
> 
> - There is a normal, installed Emacs, with a site-lisp directory.  My
>   users run this and get the installed site-lisp directory.  All normal.
> 
> - I run this same Emacs binary in some way, I don't know how, to make it
>   use a replacement site-lisp directory, instead of the installed one,
>   so that I can hack on the site-lisp, without having to build a new
>   Emacs or change the actual installed site-lisp directory.
> 
> Now that I say all this, I guess the obvious thing to do is simply pass
> 
> --no-site-lisp --directory my/local/changed/site-lisp
> 
> and then hack away.
> 
> But will that behave correctly?  Are there any footguns there?
> 
> (Does anyone actually use site-lisp?  It seems a little under-explored,
> but I think it will be really useful at my site, so that people can
> easily run "emacs -q" to get an emacs with only the site configuration
> which should help with debugging their problems)

I use site-lisp, if by that you mean the site-lisp directory that is
put on load-path.

I don't really understand what is it that you are trying to
accomplish, but one aspect that might be relevant is that there are 2
site-lisp: one is specific to the Emacs version, the other one is not
(so is visible to all Emacs versions).

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Spencer Baugh]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Spencer Baugh <sbaugh@janestreet.com>
>> Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2023 17:14:51 -0400
>> 
>> 
>> I want to start using site-lisp at my site.  But I'm not sure how to
>> hack on changed versions of the site-lisp, without installing it.
>> 
>> What would be ideal for me is this:
>> 
>> - There is a normal, installed Emacs, with a site-lisp directory.  My
>>   users run this and get the installed site-lisp directory.  All normal.
>> 
>> - I run this same Emacs binary in some way, I don't know how, to make it
>>   use a replacement site-lisp directory, instead of the installed one,
>>   so that I can hack on the site-lisp, without having to build a new
>>   Emacs or change the actual installed site-lisp directory.
>> 
>> Now that I say all this, I guess the obvious thing to do is simply pass
>> 
>> --no-site-lisp --directory my/local/changed/site-lisp
>> 
>> and then hack away.
>> 
>> But will that behave correctly?  Are there any footguns there?
>> 
>> (Does anyone actually use site-lisp?  It seems a little under-explored,
>> but I think it will be really useful at my site, so that people can
>> easily run "emacs -q" to get an emacs with only the site configuration
>> which should help with debugging their problems)
>
> I use site-lisp, if by that you mean the site-lisp directory that is
> put on load-path.

The system-wide one in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp?  Don't you need root
to change that one?  Isn't that inconvenient?

That's the one I mean, anyway.

> I don't really understand what is it that you are trying to
> accomplish, but one aspect that might be relevant is that there are 2
> site-lisp: one is specific to the Emacs version, the other one is not
> (so is visible to all Emacs versions).

Ah, yes, that is relevant.  But I expect to compile a new Emacs binary
with a different --prefix each time I change site-lisp anyway, so each
site-lisp will be specific to an individual Emacs binary.

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Spencer Baugh <sbaugh@janestreet.com>
> Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2023 11:58:14 -0400
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > I use site-lisp, if by that you mean the site-lisp directory that is
> > put on load-path.
> 
> The system-wide one in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp?

Yes.

> Don't you need root to change that one?  Isn't that inconvenient?

On my systems, I have the root privileges, so this isn't inconvenient.
Why don't you on your systems?  I understand that you are the de-facto
administrator, since you set up things for your users?

Anyway, what's inconvenient in using the system-wide site-lisp?  If
access rights is the issue, Tramp should solve that cleanly, I think.

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Emanuel Berg]

Spencer Baugh wrote:

>> I use site-lisp, if by that you mean the site-lisp
>> directory that is put on load-path.
>
> The system-wide one in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp? Don't you
> need root to change that one? Isn't that inconvenient?

Yes, and this is why most users keep their configuration in
.emacs in their $HOME paths :)

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Spencer Baugh]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>> From: Spencer Baugh <sbaugh@janestreet.com>
>> Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2023 11:58:14 -0400
>> 
>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>> 
>> > I use site-lisp, if by that you mean the site-lisp directory that is
>> > put on load-path.
>> 
>> The system-wide one in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp?
>
> Yes.
>
>> Don't you need root to change that one?  Isn't that inconvenient?
>
> On my systems, I have the root privileges, so this isn't inconvenient.
> Why don't you on your systems?  I understand that you are the de-facto
> administrator, since you set up things for your users?

I do, yes.

> Anyway, what's inconvenient in using the system-wide site-lisp?  If
> access rights is the issue, Tramp should solve that cleanly, I think.

It just seems less convenient to have to use TRAMP to edit the files.
Doing everything in ~/.emacs.d avoids the access rights issue; it's not
shared, but that's fine since there's only one user in your case (I
assume?).  For my personal configuration on my personal machines, I
generally try to configure things in ~ as much as possible, since all
system-wide configuration has the hassle of access rights.

Thanks for sharing your workflow though, it's interesting to hear that
site-lisp works well for this.

Do you install packages into site-lisp, too?  Or, what in general do you
put in site-lisp?

Do you use site-start.el?  default.el?  I definitely hope to use those,
too.

Re: Changing site-lisp without installing it

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Spencer Baugh <sbaugh@janestreet.com>
> Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2023 14:46:00 -0400
> 
> Do you install packages into site-lisp, too?  Or, what in general do you
> put in site-lisp?

Yes, I install packages in site-lisp.  That's basically all I use it
for.

> Do you use site-start.el?  default.el?  I definitely hope to use those,
> too.

None of these here, just the good old ~/.emacs.