Re: Emacs22, Emacs23, and symlinks

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

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