Resources for an old newbie ?

Resources for an old newbie ?

[Frederick Bartlett]

I’ve been using Emacs for nearly 30 years, but I was never taught it and
did not take computer science classes (unless you count Fortran).

FWIW, my main OS is Fedora Linux, though my company insists that everyone
have Windows, so I also use WSL.

So I can use it as a text editor proficiently enough, but am quite ignorant
of Emacs Lisp (and all other Lisps), though I have written the odd macro
here and there.

Is there an easy way to learn how to use all the resources in the Emacs
ecosystem without becoming an expert Lisper?

E.g., I just tried to install helm and am completely baffled by the info
and error messages I’m getting:

INFO:  Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/lilypond-init.el
(source)...

While I do occasionally edit lilypond files in Emacs, I was not aware that
I had integrated it into Emacs (I mostly use Frescobaldi), and lilypond is
not in my init.el file.

ERROR: find: ‘./emacs/helm’: No such file or directory

Since I invoked
  ./emacs/helm/emacs-helm.sh -P /usr/bin/emacs-28.2
from my home directory, I would expect it to know where it is.

There must be some extremely basic knowledge that I have completely missed
… any pointers?

Thanks!
Fred

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Eduardo Ochs]

On Sun, 21 May 2023 at 21:45, Frederick Bartlett
<frederick.bartlett@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I’ve been using Emacs for nearly 30 years, but I was never taught it and
> did not take computer science classes (unless you count Fortran).
>
> FWIW, my main OS is Fedora Linux, though my company insists that everyone
> have Windows, so I also use WSL.
>
> So I can use it as a text editor proficiently enough, but am quite ignorant
> of Emacs Lisp (and all other Lisps), though I have written the odd macro
> here and there.
>
> Is there an easy way to learn how to use all the resources in the Emacs
> ecosystem without becoming an expert Lisper?
>
> E.g., I just tried to install helm and am completely baffled by the info
> and error messages I’m getting:
>
> INFO:  Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/lilypond-init.el
> (source)...
>
> While I do occasionally edit lilypond files in Emacs, I was not aware that
> I had integrated it into Emacs (I mostly use Frescobaldi), and lilypond is
> not in my init.el file.
>
> ERROR: find: ‘./emacs/helm’: No such file or directory
>
> Since I invoked
>   ./emacs/helm/emacs-helm.sh -P /usr/bin/emacs-28.2
> from my home directory, I would expect it to know where it is.
>
> There must be some extremely basic knowledge that I have completely missed
> … any pointers?
>
> Thanks!
> Fred


Hi Fred,

if your intent is to learn the basics of Emacs Lisp, take a look here:

http://anggtwu.net/eev-intros/find-elisp-intro.html

Some people love that mini-tutorial and some people hate it - but I
thought that I had to share it anyway... =P

  Cheers,
    Eduardo Ochs
    http://anggtwu.net/#eev
    http://anggtwu.net/eepitch.html

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Frederick Bartlett <frederick.bartlett@gmail.com> writes:

> E.g., I just tried to install helm and am completely baffled by the info
> and error messages I’m getting:

First I try to answer your specific questions:

> INFO:  Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/lilypond-init.el
> (source)...

This looks like it belongs to something you installed in your OS: when
you install Emacs libraries with your OS package manager setup files go
to this site-lisp directory.  Maybe ask your OS to which package this
file belongs, or ignore it for now.

> Since I invoked
>   ./emacs/helm/emacs-helm.sh -P /usr/bin/emacs-28.2
> from my home directory, I would expect it to know where it is.

This emacs-helm.sh script is for testing and debugging Helm, it is not
for the end user!

Typically you install such packages from within the built-in emacs
package manager that you get when typing M-x list-packages RET.  Then
you can (require 'helm) or call (helm-mode +1) in your init file (using
a "normally started" Emacs).  Then see the documentation of the packages
for how to configure them.


Apart from these examples, the main question is: what do you want to do
and achieve in Emacs, is you basic understand of Lisp good enough to
allow you to edit your init file to get what you want (or do you need an
introduction?  Emacs comes with an Info manual "Emacs Lisp Intro", we
can tell you how to read that from within Emacs.  It teaches some basic
levels of (E)Lisp.  Maybe that would be a good start).

After that the documentation that comes with Emacs plus this user list
should be enough to be able to go the following steps.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> > INFO:  Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/site-start.d/lilypond-init.el
> > (source)...

In Debian the normal Lilypond installation comes with configuration
files for Emacs (package lilypond-data).  So it is expected that you
have these.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Basile Starynkevitch]

On 5/22/23 02:44, Frederick Bartlett wrote:
> I’ve been using Emacs for nearly 30 years, but I was never taught it and
> did not take computer science classes (unless you count Fortran).
>
> FWIW, my main OS is Fedora Linux, though my company insists that everyone
> have Windows, so I also use WSL.


A possibility could be to read the following websites or books

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/pdf/eintr.pdf

Christian Queinnec's book *Lisp In Small Pieces 
*https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139172974

(I read the original French version, /Principes d'implantation de Scheme 
et Lisp/, ISBN 978-2-916466-03-3)

If you need more theory about compilation of Lisp and ML like languages, 
read Appel's book on /Compiling with Continuations/.


Of course I recommend downloading the latest GNU emacs snapshot source 
tarball and compiling it. I am doing so every day!

NB: my pet open source project is the RefPerSys inference engine on 
https://github.com/RefPerSys/RefPerSys/ and http://refpersys.org/


-- 
Basile Starynkevitch<basile@starynkevitch.net>
(only mine opinions / les opinions sont miennes uniquement)
92340 Bourg-la-Reine, France
web page: starynkevitch.net/Basile/

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Basile Starynkevitch <basile@starynkevitch.net> writes:

> If you need more theory about compilation of Lisp and ML like
> languages, read Appel's book on /Compiling with Continuations/.
>
> Of course I recommend downloading the latest GNU emacs snapshot source
> tarball and compiling it. I am doing so every day!

Honestly: this doesn't seem appropriate to me as a start.  The book
seems to advanced if you want an introduction into Elisp...that's
specialist literature, it might be a very good book, but probably not to
learn how to go the first steps in Elisp.  And also not the further
steps in Emacs.

And the second tip just adds even more barriers at this beginner level.
It might be fun and exciting to use the newest sources, but this is
definitely not related to learning Emacs - it's distracting and
unnecessary unless you are very excited and have a lot of time.  One can
do this later or.  It's not good to advice people to do this - especially
beginners.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

> And the second tip just adds even more barriers at this
> beginner level. It might be fun and exciting to use the
> newest sources, but this is definitely not related to
> learning Emacs - it's distracting and unnecessary unless you
> are very excited and have a lot of time. One can do this
> later or. It's not good to advice people to do this -
> especially beginners.

People tend to care about 1-3 programs, if one of those are
Emacs then I think one should get the newest version
and source, definitely. It isn't difficult, actually.

Because, the problem is the repositories are so behind.
For example in the Debian repos, xemacs21 is the most "recent"
version available ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Philip Kaludercic]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Michael Heerdegen wrote:
>
>> And the second tip just adds even more barriers at this
>> beginner level. It might be fun and exciting to use the
>> newest sources, but this is definitely not related to
>> learning Emacs - it's distracting and unnecessary unless you
>> are very excited and have a lot of time. One can do this
>> later or. It's not good to advice people to do this -
>> especially beginners.
>
> People tend to care about 1-3 programs, if one of those are
> Emacs then I think one should get the newest version
> and source, definitely. It isn't difficult, actually.
>
> Because, the problem is the repositories are so behind.
> For example in the Debian repos, xemacs21 is the most "recent"
> version available ...

That is a bad example: XEmacs 21(.4) /is/ the newest version of XEmacs,
since there hasn't been a release since 2009[0].  It appears there was
a beta release just a few days ago[1], after a almost ten-year break.

Depending on what you do, I think that even a release from Debian Stable
is good enough for most people who aren't into core Emacs development.
The main issue most people will eventually encounter is that some
package maintainers are too eager to drop support for "older" versions
of Emacs, so a number of interesting packages become inaccessible.  But
Debian Stable is usually what defines the fringe of "widespread Emacs
releases", so package maintainers usually respect that.

That being said, it does hurt to know that the next release of Emacs
will miss the next Debian release ever so closely, meaning that Stable
users will be stuck with Emacs 28 instead of 29 for a few more years to
come.

[0] https://www.xemacs.org/Releases/index.html#Stable
[1] https://www.xemacs.org/Releases/21.5.35.html#announcement

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Philip Kaludercic wrote:

>> Because, the problem is the repositories are so behind.
>> For example in the Debian repos, xemacs21 is the most
>> "recent" version available ...
>
> That is a bad example: XEmacs 21(.4) /is/ the newest version
> of XEmacs, since there hasn't been a release since 2009.

Yes, it is also unrelated since XEmacs is a fork of, but not
quite, GNU Emacs.

> Depending on what you do, I think that even a release from
> Debian Stable is good enough for most people who aren't into
> core Emacs development.

I did it for many years while doing a lot of things with
Emacs, including Elisp, so it is good enough - I know this
from my own experience - but even better is to use the
latest Emacs.

It makes it so much more fun so it is what I recommend to any
Emacs "fan" - no matter what level, high or low, he or she is
at or believes he or she is at.

This is the most important point - more fun, more excitement
and enthusiasm - but I'll add a practical aspect that happened
to me, sometimes I got answers on this very list ~"do it like
this" and those functions I didn't have, since they hadn't
been added to my older version of Emacs.

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Because, the problem is the repositories are so behind.
> For example in the Debian repos, xemacs21 is the most "recent"
> version available ...

This has little to do with helping with learning, though.

And I guess the Emacs releases must have some advantages too, else the
Emacs developers would not work hard to create them.


Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> Because, the problem is the repositories are so behind
>
> This has little to do with helping with learning, though.

Actually it has something to do with it! Because it becomes
more fun, fast, there will be more possibilities what you can
do, more interesting discussions (about what is modern and new
and you don't even pretend to understand it), just a better
all-in-all software experience to use and to be active with
and around as a human being interacting with technology.

And the more fun, the more activity, and if you have those
two, fun and activity - in combination - no one has to worry
about learning since it'll come automatically when you go to
sleep and dream ...

> And I guess the Emacs releases must have some advantages
> too, else the Emacs developers would not work hard to
> create them.

Trust me, if you are a fan, it'll just give you so much more.
The Debian distribution model is great but for the one, two or
three programs you really care about (mine are Emacs and mpv
if anyone is curious :P), for those I recommend 100% getting
the latest version.

PS. Also note this this is something that is something
    possible with software. But what guys that are into
    construction, bikes, ice hockey, climbing, chemistry etc
    can ever dream of the very latest and most cutting-edge
    machines, models, gear, or labs?

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Actually it has something to do with it! Because it becomes
> more fun, fast, there will be more possibilities what you can
> do, more interesting discussions (about what is modern and new
> and you don't even pretend to understand it), just a better
> all-in-all software experience to use and to be active with
> and around as a human being interacting with technology.
>
> And the more fun, the more activity, and if you have those
> two, fun and activity - in combination - no one has to worry
> about learning since it'll come automatically when you go to
> sleep and dream ...
>
> Trust me, if you are a fan, it'll just give you so much more.
> The Debian distribution model is great but for the one, two or
> three programs you really care about (mine are Emacs and mpv
> if anyone is curious :P), for those I recommend 100% getting
> the latest version.

I know this has been your way, and it has been mine, so I know what you
are talking about.  I just don't think it is the best way for everyone,
probably not even for a majority.  I don't want people to be
disappointed, not everybody has enough time for this.  And even for the
others, it's a decision to be made after going the first steps (like
reading the Elisp intro).

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> Trust me, if you are a fan, it'll just give you so much
>> more. The Debian distribution model is great but for the
>> one, two or three programs you really care about (mine are
>> Emacs and mpv if anyone is curious :P), for those
>> I recommend 100% getting the latest version.
>
> I know this has been your way, and it has been mine, so
> I know what you are talking about. I just don't think it is
> the best way for everyone, probably not even for a majority.
> I don't want people to be disappointed, not everybody has
> enough time for this [...]

On the contrary, it is very easy and fast.

And people are very fluent with those kind of sysadmin Linux
and BSD commands these days, it is done in an instant!

I'm talking about installing the latest version, not writing
endless Elisp if that's what you mean?

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> On the contrary, it is very easy and fast.
>
> And people are very fluent with those kind of sysadmin Linux
> and BSD commands these days, it is done in an instant!

For those that a very fluent with these things, ok.  But there are other
Emacs users, too.

> I'm talking about installing the latest version, not writing
> endless Elisp if that's what you mean?

Master is broken from time to time.  If something breaks, one needs to
be able to find out the cause (my init file?  my os?  emacs itself?).
People yet learning Emacs Lisp can't do that so easily.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> And people are very fluent with those kind of sysadmin
>> Linux and BSD commands these days, it is done in
>> an instant!
>
> For those that a very fluent with these things, ok.

I don't understand, what is this sudden underestimation?
People all over the world are downloading software and
installing it on various Unix platforms, it is part of
computer literacy and happens every day.

> But there are other Emacs users, too.

I don't understand, are they unable to do it?

But by all means, it's optional to those not brave enough to
take that bold step.

>> I'm talking about installing the latest version, not
>> writing endless Elisp if that's what you mean?
>
> Master is broken from time to time.

If so say so, I never had the situation but I suppose it could
happen. But regardless it can hardly be held against supposed
"beginners" compiling Emacs what mistakes Emacs developers may
or may not do ...

> If something breaks, one needs to be able to find out the
> cause (my init file? my os? emacs itself?). People yet
> learning Emacs Lisp can't do that so easily.

Again, it is about Unix (Linux and BSD) commands and system
administration at a basic level, it has nothing to do with
Elisp or any supposedly advanced activities regarding Emacs ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[tomas]

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On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 07:31:08AM +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:

[...]

> Because, the problem is the repositories are so behind.
> For example in the Debian repos, xemacs21 is the most "recent"
> version available ...

Emanuel, please check your facts. Debian stable, aka bullseye has
Emacs 27.1; soon-to-be-stable,aka bookworm has 28.2 [1].

It's not that hard.

Debian is known for not being bleeding edge, and it has good reasons
for that (that's one of the things I actually appreciate in Debian).

But it is't "vintage", either.

Cheers

[1] https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=Gnu+Emacs&searchon=all&suite=all&section=all
-- 
t

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Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

tomas wrote:

> Debian is known for not being bleeding edge, and it has good
> reasons for that (that's one of the things I actually
> appreciate in Debian).

Debian is a very good Linux distribution but that shouldn't
limit your Emacs experience if you are a fan of the software.

And it doesn't, since getting and installing the latest Emacs
version on Debian is almost as easy as installing it from
the repositories!

I have my shell function commands [1] but I've heard of people
doing backporting as well.

Conclusion: You are allowed to use the latest Emacs even if
you use Debian :)

[1] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/.zsh/install-emacs

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[tomas]

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On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 03:25:00AM +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:

[...]

> Conclusion: You are allowed to use the latest Emacs even if
> you use Debian :)

Absolutely.

Cheers
-- 
t

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Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

<tomas@tuxteam.de> writes:

> On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 03:25:00AM +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:
>
>> Conclusion: You are allowed to use the latest Emacs even if
>> you use Debian :)
>
> Absolutely.

But, if you want to use latest Emacs on stable Debian, do you have to
build Emacs yourself.  If so, do you have to pull in (a lot of) packages
needed to build Emacs, but are not in stable Debian?  Then, do you have
to go through the process of updating these packages to build a clean
Emacs when you update to a new version of Emacs?

*OR*

Is there a pre-built "latest Emacs" that will just work on stable
Debian? 

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Is there a pre-built "latest Emacs" that will just work on stable
> Debian? 

The last time when such a question came up (for Ubuntu):
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2023-03/msg00165.html

I had found this helpful page:

  https://learnubuntu.com/install-emacs/

The flathub package works well here (Debian stable here).


Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Robby Zambito]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> The flathub package works well here (Debian stable here).

In addition to Flathub, the GNU Guix package manager is also available
in the Debian repos. A more recent version of Emacs can be installed
using that too.

Robby

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Robby Zambito <contact@robbyzambito.me> writes:

> Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:
>
>> The flathub package works well here (Debian stable here).
>
> In addition to Flathub, the GNU Guix package manager is also available
> in the Debian repos. A more recent version of Emacs can be installed
> using that too.

Questions:
* Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
* Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
* If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

>>> The flathub package works well here (Debian stable here).
>>
>> In addition to Flathub, the GNU Guix package manager is
>> also available in the Debian repos. A more recent version
>> of Emacs can be installed using that too.
>
> Questions:
> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?

* Can you use the MELPA package guix, which is an "[i]nterface
  for GNU Guix", from Emacs to install a more recent version
  of Emacs?

* But then, can't we just have

    $ sudo emacs --upgrade

  ?

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> David Masterson wrote:
>
>>>> The flathub package works well here (Debian stable here).
>>>
>>> In addition to Flathub, the GNU Guix package manager is
>>> also available in the Debian repos. A more recent version
>>> of Emacs can be installed using that too.
>>
>> Questions:
>> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
>> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
>> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?
>
> * Can you use the MELPA package guix, which is an "[i]nterface
>   for GNU Guix", from Emacs to install a more recent version
>   of Emacs?
>
> * But then, can't we just have
>
>     $ sudo emacs --upgrade
>
>   ?

Restart issues...?

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

>> In addition to Flathub, the GNU Guix package manager is
>> also available in the Debian repos. A more recent version
>> of Emacs can be installed using that too.
>
> Questions:
> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?

Maybe the EmacsWiki has or should have a page dedicated to
upgrading Emacs with such and other details specified for the
different methods?

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> David Masterson wrote:
>
>>> In addition to Flathub, the GNU Guix package manager is
>>> also available in the Debian repos. A more recent version
>>> of Emacs can be installed using that too.
>>
>> Questions:
>> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
>> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
>> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?
>
> Maybe the EmacsWiki has or should have a page dedicated to
> upgrading Emacs with such and other details specified for the
> different methods?

Agreed

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Robby Zambito]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
> Questions:
> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?

For Guix, you can see the full list of dependencies for the Emacs
package in Guix on this page:
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/build/1331975/details

I'm not sure how to see the full list of dependencies for the Emacs
package in Flathub or Snap. In all three cases however, it will indeed
pull in an isolated GTK package.

Robby

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Robby Zambito <contact@robbyzambito.me> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>> Questions:
>> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
>> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
>> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?
>
> For Guix, you can see the full list of dependencies for the Emacs
> package in Guix on this page:
> https://ci.guix.gnu.org/build/1331975/details
>
> I'm not sure how to see the full list of dependencies for the Emacs
> package in Flathub or Snap. In all three cases however, it will indeed
> pull in an isolated GTK package.

Isolated was the key I was looking for.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Questions:
> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?

I only can say something about the flathub package I have installed:

  https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnu.emacs

It greets as:

| This is GNU Emacs 28.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
| 3.24.35, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2022-12-09
| Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

It doesn't seem to have installed any gtk package (I have none installed
with flathub), but I'm not sure how to view the dependencies.

But let me also say that building Emacs yourself in Debian stable is
indeed nearly trivial: I'm very ignorant about such stuff, and after
installing the dependencies once (which was not a big problem, others
have explained what's to do), AFAIR I never again had to care about
them, or extremely rarely (when a fundamentally new feature had been
introduced, like jit-compiling or how images are supported or so).
Updating your OS as often as you would do anyway is good enough.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

> But let me also say that building Emacs yourself in Debian
> stable is indeed nearly trivial: I'm very ignorant about
> such stuff, and after installing the dependencies once
> (which was not a big problem, others have explained what's
> to do), AFAIR I never again had to care about them [...]

Okay, excellent!

I don't think you are very ignorant about such stuff, really,
but I agree it is very easy :)

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Questions:
>> * Can I get details about the Emacs package from snap, flathub, & guix?
>> * Particularly, can I find out the Emacs package dependencies?
>> * If Emacs uses Gtk, do these commands pull in Gtk as well?
>
> I only can say something about the flathub package I have installed:
>
>   https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnu.emacs
>
> It greets as:
>
> | This is GNU Emacs 28.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
> | 3.24.35, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2022-12-09
> | Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
> It doesn't seem to have installed any gtk package (I have none installed
> with flathub), but I'm not sure how to view the dependencies.
>
> But let me also say that building Emacs yourself in Debian stable is
> indeed nearly trivial: I'm very ignorant about such stuff, and after
> installing the dependencies once (which was not a big problem, others
> have explained what's to do), AFAIR I never again had to care about
> them, or extremely rarely (when a fundamentally new feature had been
> introduced, like jit-compiling or how images are supported or so).
> Updating your OS as often as you would do anyway is good enough.

I think I once started into building emacs from scratch without knowing
much about apt or anything about snap, flathub, or guix.  I quickly
started running into installation of large numbers of other dependencies
that looked like they would require too much overwriting of system
libraries.  I quickly abandoned that idea.  My questions above stem from
that experience.

I'm considering the ideas from this thread.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> I think I once started into building emacs from scratch without knowing
> much about apt or anything about snap, flathub, or guix.  I quickly
> started running into installation of large numbers of other dependencies
> that looked like they would require too much overwriting of system
> libraries.

Not really: those dependencies are "-dev" named packages that are used
_only_ for building software.  These don't overwrite system libraries.

Of course you also must install the tools to build emacs (compiler etc),
but I don't recall that the dependencies of those were problematic or
much different from the dependencies of other software.  And the package
manager of the OS always ensures that all installed packages have acceptable
versions of libraries installed.

First and foremost it's important that you understand what you are
doing.  If you don't have a good feeling, don't do it.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> I think I once started into building emacs from scratch
>> without knowing much about apt or anything about snap,
>> flathub, or guix. I quickly started running into
>> installation of large numbers of other dependencies that
>> looked like they would require too much overwriting of
>> system libraries.
>
> Not really: those dependencies are "-dev" named packages
> that are used _only_ for building software. These don't
> overwrite system libraries.

Sweat Suzy, of course they don't ...

> First and foremost it's important that you understand what
> you are doing. If you don't have a good feeling, don't
> do it.

One doesn't have to understand everything 100% the first time
one does it.

Not that there should be that much to understand here, at
a conceptual level. The source is downloaded, compiled, and
installed. Isn't that pretty much it?

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> One doesn't have to understand everything 100% the first time
> one does it.
>
> Not that there should be that much to understand here, at
> a conceptual level. The source is downloaded, compiled, and
> installed. Isn't that pretty much it?

I just wasn't confident that installing the (large amount of)
dependencies wouldn't wind up braking something else on my system.  I
used to play with this stuff a lot before retiring, but that was a long
time ago and I've slowed down.  ;)

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Here are the minimal (?) commands required to install the
latest Emacs on Debian.

I removed the shell functions in this version, if that is what
made it so scary last time. (But actually I recommend using
functions: less error prone, faster and more reliable.)

Anyway, as you now see below beyond doubt, it is
a trivial affair.

Installing Emacs is step 1-3 and 5, that is 12 commands.
Upgrading it after that, step 4 and 5, is only 7 commands.
All of them well familiar to most Joe Unix Hacker on
the globe.

If one can do it better or shorter, do say! And when we are
done, we could mail the EmacsWiki maintainers and ask them to
publish the list of commands, if they lack such a page.

# 1. setup directories
src_dir=~/src
emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
mkdir -p $emacs_dir

# 2. get dependencies
sudo apt-get -qq update
sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
sudo apt-get build-dep emacs

# 3. get source
cd $src_dir
git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git

# 4. refresh source/upgrade
cd $emacs_dir
git fetch
git merge

# 5. compile and install
autogen.sh
configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation
make
sudo make install

https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/.zsh/install-emacs
(with functions, recommended)

https://dataswamp.org/~incal/scripts/emacs-install-minimal
(as a script)

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Platon Pronko]

On 2023-05-31 07:24, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> # 4. refresh source/upgrade
> cd $emacs_dir
> git fetch
> git merge

Why fetch and merge instead of `git pull`?

> Anyway, as you now see below beyond doubt, it is
> a trivial affair.

Sure it is :)
But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of compilation inexperienced user
is presented with "Org version mismatch error", as I have been several times before.
(still tracking that error down, for now I usually "solve it" by `git clean -dxf` and thus full rebuild, but that's non-optimal)

-- 
Best regards,
Platon Pronko
PGP 2A62D77A7A2CB94E

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Platon Pronko wrote:

>> # 4. refresh source/upgrade
>> cd $emacs_dir
>> git fetch
>> git merge
>
> Why fetch and merge instead of `git pull`?

OK, changed. It says here you are right:

  https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/syncing/git-pull

Now we are down at c - 1 commands ...

>> Anyway, as you now see below beyond doubt, it is
>> a trivial affair.
>
> Sure it is :)
> But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of
> compilation inexperienced user is presented with "Org
> version mismatch error"

Thanks, but I'd rather save my pool of imaginary energy for
more interesting scenarios ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Platon Pronko <platon7pronko@gmail.com> writes:

> > Anyway, as you now see below beyond doubt, it is
> > a trivial affair.
>
> Sure it is :)
> But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of compilation
> inexperienced user
> is presented with "Org version mismatch error", as I have been several
> times before.

Yes, such things, exactly.  Emanuel probably only can imagine good
hackers, exceptional hackers, normal hackers, and not-that-good hackers.

> (still tracking that error down, for now I usually "solve it" by `git
> clean -dxf` and thus full rebuild, but that's non-optimal)

AFAIU it's enough to recompile Org (i.e. remove all the org .elc's
before "make").

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Platon Pronko <platon7pronko@gmail.com> writes:

> On 2023-05-31 07:24, Emanuel Berg wrote:
>> Anyway, as you now see below beyond doubt, it is a trivial affair.
>
> Sure it is :)
>
> But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of compilation
> inexperienced user is presented with "Org version mismatch error", as
> I have been several times before.  (still tracking that error down,
> for now I usually "solve it" by `git clean -dxf` and thus full
> rebuild, but that's non-optimal)

That's probably a conflict with the pre-installed Emacs on Debian?
Maybe remove the old version?

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> > But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of compilation
> > inexperienced user is presented with "Org version mismatch error", as
> > I have been several times before.  (still tracking that error down,
> > for now I usually "solve it" by `git clean -dxf` and thus full
> > rebuild, but that's non-optimal)
>
> That's probably a conflict with the pre-installed Emacs on Debian?
> Maybe remove the old version?

It's something that happens from time to time when recompiling Emacs,
there is no direct relation to other Emacs installations.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> > But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of compilation
>> > inexperienced user is presented with "Org version mismatch error", as
>> > I have been several times before.  (still tracking that error down,
>> > for now I usually "solve it" by `git clean -dxf` and thus full
>> > rebuild, but that's non-optimal)
>>
>> That's probably a conflict with the pre-installed Emacs on Debian?
>> Maybe remove the old version?
>
> It's something that happens from time to time when recompiling Emacs,
> there is no direct relation to other Emacs installations.

I don't know. I believe, in this case, it was something in org-compat.el
for setting up version compatability that didn't work well when
compiled.  The old .elc (in the pre-installed Emacs) was overriding the
current .el (in the ELPA package) and the change in org-compat for
(IIRC) Org 9.3 was enough that new code dependent on the new org-compat
broke (org-compat is supposed to handle that).  I thought later versions
of Org fixed this problem.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> >> > But imagine what happens if after half-an hour of compilation
> >> > inexperienced user is presented with "Org version mismatch error", as
> >> > I have been several times before.  (still tracking that error down,
> >> > for now I usually "solve it" by `git clean -dxf` and thus full
> >> > rebuild, but that's non-optimal)
> >>
> >> That's probably a conflict with the pre-installed Emacs on Debian?
> >> Maybe remove the old version?
> >
> > It's something that happens from time to time when recompiling Emacs,
> > there is no direct relation to other Emacs installations.
>
> I don't know. I believe, in this case, it was something in org-compat.el
> for setting up version compatability that didn't work well when
> compiled.  The old .elc (in the pre-installed Emacs) was overriding the
> current .el (in the ELPA package) and the change in org-compat for
> (IIRC) Org 9.3 was enough that new code dependent on the new org-compat
> broke (org-compat is supposed to handle that).  I thought later versions
> of Org fixed this problem.

I remember hearing about this one.  We probably speak about different
but related and similarly behaving issues.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Here are the minimal (?) commands required to install the
> latest Emacs on Debian.
>
> I removed the shell functions in this version, if that is what
> made it so scary last time. (But actually I recommend using
> functions: less error prone, faster and more reliable.)
>
> Anyway, as you now see below beyond doubt, it is
> a trivial affair.
>
> Installing Emacs is step 1-3 and 5, that is 12 commands.
> Upgrading it after that, step 4 and 5, is only 7 commands.
> All of them well familiar to most Joe Unix Hacker on
> the globe.
>
> If one can do it better or shorter, do say! And when we are
> done, we could mail the EmacsWiki maintainers and ask them to
> publish the list of commands, if they lack such a page.
>
> # 1. setup directories
> src_dir=~/src
> emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
> mkdir -p $emacs_dir
>
> # 2. get dependencies
> sudo apt-get -qq update
> sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
> sudo apt-get build-dep emacs

This pulled in a *LOT* of stuff.

> # 3. get source
> cd $src_dir
> git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git
>
> # 4. refresh source/upgrade
> cd $emacs_dir
> git fetch
> git merge

I modified this to 'git pull' as previously suggested.  There was
nothing to pull.

> # 5. compile and install
> autogen.sh
> configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation
> make
> sudo make install

Gave this a try.  Still having problems:

1. with-x-toolkit=no means no Lucid or GTK -- the process gets much more
complex for dependency if you want a toolkit (I think Lucid is easier
than GTK)
2. autogen.sh and configure need "./" in front of them (you never know
what PATH the user is using).
3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun configure
with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.
4. You can add arguments to the configure in the make step by passing
'configure="--ARG1..."' to make.
5. Even so, after doing everything else you listed and using your
configure options, I got these libraries missing with configure
suggesting how to get around it:
          libXpm libjpeg libgif/libungif libtiff gnutls
6. Oops -- missed the build-dep step!  Got thru configure and it's
building properly, but it's gonna take awhile...  ;)
7. Probably should've tee'd the output of make to a log file... :(

I'm building on a Chromebook with a basic Debian v11.7.


> https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/.zsh/install-emacs
> (with functions, recommended)
>
> https://dataswamp.org/~incal/scripts/emacs-install-minimal
> (as a script)

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

>> # 1. setup directories
>> src_dir=~/src
>> emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
>> mkdir -p $emacs_dir
>>
>> # 2. get dependencies
>> sudo apt-get -qq update
>> sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
>> sudo apt-get build-dep emacs
>
> This pulled in a *LOT* of stuff.

Don't know - how much is a lot? It is what you need/want
anyway ...

>> # 3. get source
>> cd $src_dir
>> git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git
>>
>> # 4. refresh source/upgrade
>> cd $emacs_dir
>> git fetch
>> git merge
>
> I modified this to 'git pull' as previously suggested.
> There was nothing to pull.

Immediate after 'git clone' there are probably no changes to
pull, try it again later. It is used to update, in that
situation you only do it (step 4) and then step 5 below.

>> # 5. compile and install
>> autogen.sh
>> configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation
>> make
>> sudo make install
>
> Gave this a try.  Still having problems:
>
> 1. with-x-toolkit=no means no Lucid or GTK -- the process
>    gets much more complex for dependency if you want
>    a toolkit (I think Lucid is easier than GTK)

Those are only my settings, adjust for your purposes obviously.

> 2. autogen.sh and configure need "./" in front of them (you
>    never know what PATH the user is using).

Right, good point. Yes, I have "." first in $PATH.

> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun
>    configure with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.
> 
> 4. You can add arguments to the configure in the make step
>    by passing 'configure="--ARG1..."' to make.

Okay, that should mean that --with-native-compilation is on by
default since I know that happens.

> 5. Even so, after doing everything else you listed and using your
>    configure options, I got these libraries missing with configure
>    suggesting how to get around it:
>           libXpm libjpeg libgif/libungif libtiff gnutls
>
> 6. Oops -- missed the build-dep step! Got thru configure and
>    it's building properly, but it's gonna take awhile... ;)

Tell us how it went ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:


> 1. with-x-toolkit=no means no Lucid or GTK -- the process gets much more
> complex for dependency if you want a toolkit (I think Lucid is easier
> than GTK)

Note that "no toolkit" doesn't mean no X menus and scrollbars etc.  You
lose a bit of convenience and eye candy, but nothing fundamental: Emacs
has limited support for these things (that is also planned to be
improved).

That is because, IIRC, GTK will eventually be dropped, and Lucid also
has problems (was it some unfixable bugs or crashs?).  I have also
switched to a no-toolkit build now.  The other builds work well in
general, too, but there are these disadvantages.

> 2. autogen.sh and configure need "./" in front of them (you never know
> what PATH the user is using).
> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun configure
> with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.
> 4. You can add arguments to the configure in the make step by passing
> 'configure="--ARG1..."' to make.
> 5. Even so, after doing everything else you listed and using your
> configure options, I got these libraries missing with configure
> suggesting how to get around it:
>           libXpm libjpeg libgif/libungif libtiff gnutls
> 6. Oops -- missed the build-dep step!  Got thru configure and it's
> building properly, but it's gonna take awhile...  ;)
> 7. Probably should've tee'd the output of make to a log file... :(

Sounds good (and also sounds like you have surely the needed skills).


Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>> 1. with-x-toolkit=no means no Lucid or GTK -- the process gets much more
>> complex for dependency if you want a toolkit (I think Lucid is easier
>> than GTK)
>
> Note that "no toolkit" doesn't mean no X menus and scrollbars etc.  You
> lose a bit of convenience and eye candy, but nothing fundamental: Emacs
> has limited support for these things (that is also planned to be
> improved).
>
> That is because, IIRC, GTK will eventually be dropped, and Lucid also
> has problems (was it some unfixable bugs or crashs?).  I have also
> switched to a no-toolkit build now.  The other builds work well in
> general, too, but there are these disadvantages.

That's interesting!

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Probably should've tee'd the output of make to a log file

Or maybe even more useful, a list of the commands you used.
Let's see how many commands we land at when we have reduced at
least one, maybe two commands by now.

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Probably should've tee'd the output of make to a log file
>
> Or maybe even more useful, a list of the commands you used.
> Let's see how many commands we land at when we have reduced at
> least one, maybe two commands by now.

nohup make configure="--with-no-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation" \
    >& log.file &

produces a log.file of ~1780 lines.  I may have to try adding "-j -l 5"
to the make command to see if it speeds up.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

>> Or maybe even more useful, a list of the commands you used.
>> Let's see how many commands we land at when we have reduced
>> at least one, maybe two commands by now.
>
> nohup make configure="--with-no-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation" \
>     >& log.file &

Digital!

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun
>    configure with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.

I don't think so, it works and is needed as native compilation
isn't enabled by default as previously theorized. So

configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation

Native compilation makes everything much faster so everyone
who compiles Emacs manually should enable it - indeed, it
should be enabled by default quite possibly, but it isn't.

You cane verify that you have it with this, if it returns nil,
well, do it today - in a different way.

(native-comp-available-p)

https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/.zsh/install-emacs

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> David Masterson wrote:
>
>> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun
>>    configure with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.
>
> I don't think so, it works and is needed as native compilation
> isn't enabled by default as previously theorized. So
>
> configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation

I rebuilt by doing a "make distclean" and then:

nohup make configure="--with-x-tookit=no --with-native-compilation" \
    >& log.file 

The log.file shows it called configure first with those arguments and
the results of configure were:

Configured for 'x86_64-pc-linux-gnu'.

  Where should the build process find the source code?    .
  What compiler should emacs be built with?               gcc -g3 -O2
  Should Emacs use the GNU version of malloc?             no
    (The GNU allocators don't work with this system configuration.)
  Should Emacs use a relocating allocator for buffers?    no
  Should Emacs use mmap(2) for buffer allocation?         no
  What window system should Emacs use?                    x11
  What toolkit should Emacs use?                          none
  Where do we find X Windows header files?                Standard dirs
  Where do we find X Windows libraries?                   Standard dirs
  Does Emacs use -lXaw3d?                                 no
  Does Emacs use the X Double Buffer Extension?           yes
  Does Emacs use -lXpm?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -ljpeg?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use -ltiff?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use a gif library?                           yes -lgif
  Does Emacs use a png library?                           yes -lpng16 -lz
  Does Emacs use -lrsvg-2?                                yes
  Does Emacs use -lwebp?                                  no
  Does Emacs use -lsqlite3?                               no
  Does Emacs use cairo?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -llcms2?                                 yes
  Does Emacs use imagemagick?                             no
  Does Emacs use native APIs for images?                  no
  Does Emacs support sound?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -lgpm?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -ldbus?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use -lgconf?                                 no
  Does Emacs use GSettings?                               yes
  Does Emacs use a file notification library?             yes -lglibc (inotify)
  Does Emacs use access control lists?                    yes -lacl -lattr
  Does Emacs use -lselinux?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -lgnutls?                                yes
  Does Emacs use -lxml2?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use -lfreetype?                              yes
  Does Emacs use HarfBuzz?                                yes
  Does Emacs use -lm17n-flt?                              yes
  Does Emacs use -lotf?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -lxft?                                   no
  Does Emacs use -lsystemd?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -ljansson?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -ltree-sitter?                           no
  Does Emacs use the GMP library?                         yes
  Does Emacs directly use zlib?                           yes
  Does Emacs have dynamic modules support?                yes
  Does Emacs use toolkit scroll bars?                     no
  Does Emacs support Xwidgets?                            no
  Does Emacs have threading support in lisp?              yes
  Does Emacs support the portable dumper?                 yes
  Does Emacs support legacy unexec dumping?               no
  Which dumping strategy does Emacs use?                  pdumper
  Does Emacs have native lisp compiler?                   yes
  Does Emacs use version 2 of the X Input Extension?      yes
  Does Emacs generate a smaller-size Japanese dictionary? no

> Native compilation makes everything much faster so everyone
> who compiles Emacs manually should enable it - indeed, it
> should be enabled by default quite possibly, but it isn't.
>
> You cane verify that you have it with this, if it returns nil,
> well, do it today - in a different way.

The build produced a "native-lisp" directory with lots of .eln files.

> (native-comp-available-p)

Starting emacs with "-nw -q" starts fine (and, thus, shows all my
problems are in my packages loaded by .emacs), but there are no
"native-" functions or variables loaded.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2023 18:00:30 -0700
> 
> > # 1. setup directories
> > src_dir=~/src
> > emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
> > mkdir -p $emacs_dir
> >
> > # 2. get dependencies
> > sudo apt-get -qq update
> > sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
> > sudo apt-get build-dep emacs
> 
> This pulled in a *LOT* of stuff.
> 
> > # 3. get source
> > cd $src_dir
> > git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git
> >
> > # 4. refresh source/upgrade
> > cd $emacs_dir
> > git fetch
> > git merge
> 
> I modified this to 'git pull' as previously suggested.  There was
> nothing to pull.
> 
> > # 5. compile and install
> > autogen.sh
> > configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation
> > make
> > sudo make install
> 
> Gave this a try.  Still having problems:

Is this about concise and comprehensive instructions for how to build
Emacs?  In such cases, I've many times found the "Linux from scratch!"
site very useful.  In this case, read here:

  https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/emacs.html

This lists all the dependencies, both mandatory and optional.  Each
dependency is a link to another page, which describes how to build it
(if you don't have it installed already, and cannot download a
pre-built package).  If you want to decide which optional dependency
you want, read the file INSTALL in the Emacs source tree, it gives
that information.

> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun configure
> with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.

That's incorrect.  I guess you've misread GNUMakefile.  In reality, if
you have run the configure script, GNUMakefile redirects to the
top-level Makefile, and that obeys the configure-time options.

> 4. You can add arguments to the configure in the make step by passing
> 'configure="--ARG1..."' to make.

True.  Type "./configure --help" for the full story.

> 7. Probably should've tee'd the output of make to a log file... :(

Or run the commands inside Emacs's shell mode.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Basile Starynkevitch]

On 6/4/23 07:25, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
>> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2023 18:00:30 -0700
>>
>>> # 1. setup directories
>>> src_dir=~/src
>>> emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
>>> mkdir -p $emacs_dir
>>>
>>> # 2. get dependencies
>>> sudo apt-get -qq update
>>> sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
>>> sudo apt-get build-dep emacs
>> This pulled in a *LOT* of stuff.
>>
>>

I am recompiling latest GNU emacs every morning (on Debian or Ubuntu 
desktop) with the following script, the source code is (conventionally) 
on my computer in  /usr/src/Editors/emacs
(which I initialized once with the appropriate git clone).

#! /bin/bash -x
export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin
sync
cd /usr/src/Editors/emacs
rm -f etc/DOC*
git  pull
git  log -3 | cat
sync
rm -rf /tmp/emacsinst/
time nice make -j  -l 9 || exit 1
time make  install DESTDIR=/tmp/emacsinst || exit 1
sudo cp -v -r -p /tmp/emacsinst/usr/local/. /usr/local/.
sync


BTW, my pet open source project (for Linux) is the RefPerSys inference 
engine on http://refpersys.org/ and source code on 
https://github.com/RefPerSys/RefPerSys


Regards from near Paris in France

-- 
Basile Starynkevitch                  <basile@starynkevitch.net>
(only mine opinions / les opinions sont miennes uniquement)
92340 Bourg-la-Reine, France
web page: starynkevitch.net/Basile/

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Basile Starynkevitch <basile@starynkevitch.net> writes:

> On 6/4/23 07:25, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
>>> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2023 18:00:30 -0700
>>>
>>>> # 1. setup directories
>>>> src_dir=~/src
>>>> emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
>>>> mkdir -p $emacs_dir
>>>>
>>>> # 2. get dependencies
>>>> sudo apt-get -qq update
>>>> sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
>>>> sudo apt-get build-dep emacs
>>> This pulled in a *LOT* of stuff.
>
> I am recompiling latest GNU emacs every morning (on Debian or Ubuntu
> desktop) with the following script, the source code is
> (conventionally) on my computer in  /usr/src/Editors/emacs
> (which I initialized once with the appropriate git clone).
>
> #! /bin/bash -x
> export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin
> sync
> cd /usr/src/Editors/emacs
> rm -f etc/DOC*
> git  pull
> git  log -3 | cat
> sync
> rm -rf /tmp/emacsinst/
> time nice make -j  -l 9 || exit 1
> time make  install DESTDIR=/tmp/emacsinst || exit 1
> sudo cp -v -r -p /tmp/emacsinst/usr/local/. /usr/local/.
> sync

Hmm. Nice.

So, the first make does the autogen & configure? How "beefy" a computer
are you running this on and how long, at most, does it take?

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
>> Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2023 18:00:30 -0700
>> 
>> > # 1. setup directories
>> > src_dir=~/src
>> > emacs_dir=${src_dir}/emacs
>> > mkdir -p $emacs_dir
>> >
>> > # 2. get dependencies
>> > sudo apt-get -qq update
>> > sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
>> > sudo apt-get build-dep emacs
>> 
>> This pulled in a *LOT* of stuff.
>> 
>> > # 3. get source
>> > cd $src_dir
>> > git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git
>> >
>> > # 4. refresh source/upgrade
>> > cd $emacs_dir
>> > git fetch
>> > git merge
>> 
>> I modified this to 'git pull' as previously suggested.  There was
>> nothing to pull.
>> 
>> > # 5. compile and install
>> > autogen.sh
>> > configure --with-x-toolkit=no --with-native-compilation
>> > make
>> > sudo make install
>> 
>> Gave this a try.  Still having problems:
>
> Is this about concise and comprehensive instructions for how to build
> Emacs?  In such cases, I've many times found the "Linux from scratch!"
> site very useful.  In this case, read here:
>
>   https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/emacs.html

Useful, but for Emacs 28.2.  The script I followed above got me
30.0.50.  I may rethink being bleeding edge.

Your URL link (sort of) assumes a GTK rather than Lucid X-toolkit.  The
above script seems to assume no-toolkit.  I'm still figuring out what
the limits of that are.

> This lists all the dependencies, both mandatory and optional.  Each
> dependency is a link to another page, which describes how to build it
> (if you don't have it installed already, and cannot download a
> pre-built package).  If you want to decide which optional dependency
> you want, read the file INSTALL in the Emacs source tree, it gives
> that information.

Yeah, but it gets you into dependency hell as you follow the tree of
dependencies down.  I wasn't confident enough to do this for 27.1 a year
or two ago, so I waited for Debian to release it as a package.  I've
learned a little bit about snap/flatpak/guix since then and thought I
might go that way for v28.2.

The "build-dep" step above looked like a good compromise to let me load
up Debian approved dependent libraries and source build Emacs itself.

>> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun configure
>> with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.
>
> That's incorrect.  I guess you've misread GNUMakefile.  In reality, if
> you have run the configure script, GNUMakefile redirects to the
> top-level Makefile, and that obeys the configure-time options.

Good point. Configure looked like it worked, but it didn't produce a
Makefile (and I didn't pay attention to that).  Therefore, when I did a
make, it saw (via GNUMakefile) configure, but no Makefile and, so, ran
configure and then used the generated Makefile.  I'm not sure why my
configure didn't build a Makefile.

I now note that it would've also run autogen.sh if configure didn't
exist, thus doing all the work to setup a freshly retrieved set of
sources.  A nice way to hide extra steps as long as autogen.sh and
configure guess the right setup.

>> 4. You can add arguments to the configure in the make step by passing
>> 'configure="--ARG1..."' to make.
>
> True.  Type "./configure --help" for the full story.
>
>> 7. Probably should've tee'd the output of make to a log file... :(
>
> Or run the commands inside Emacs's shell mode.

This is probably the reason I messed up on #3 -- key errors/warnings
scrolled off the screen without me noticing.  I prefer a complete log
file ("make |& tee log.file") for historical reasons in case I need to
check some things days or months later.  The config.status and
config.log are good, but the simple log is quicker to read.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2023 00:26:54 -0700
> 
> >   https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/emacs.html
> 
> Useful, but for Emacs 28.2.  The script I followed above got me
> 30.0.50.

For some value of "got me".

> > This lists all the dependencies, both mandatory and optional.  Each
> > dependency is a link to another page, which describes how to build it
> > (if you don't have it installed already, and cannot download a
> > pre-built package).  If you want to decide which optional dependency
> > you want, read the file INSTALL in the Emacs source tree, it gives
> > that information.
> 
> Yeah, but it gets you into dependency hell as you follow the tree of
> dependencies down.

You must either install the dependencies from some distro (which will
bring their dependencies, recursively), or build them yourself.
There's no way around that.  The good news are that you need only do
that once.

> >> 3. The GNUMakefile in the Emacs distribution seems to rerun configure
> >> with no options, so your "configure" is NO-OP.
> >
> > That's incorrect.  I guess you've misread GNUMakefile.  In reality, if
> > you have run the configure script, GNUMakefile redirects to the
> > top-level Makefile, and that obeys the configure-time options.
> 
> Good point. Configure looked like it worked, but it didn't produce a
> Makefile (and I didn't pay attention to that).  Therefore, when I did a
> make, it saw (via GNUMakefile) configure, but no Makefile and, so, ran
> configure and then used the generated Makefile.  I'm not sure why my
> configure didn't build a Makefile.

It probably failed, that's why.  In that case, it should have ended
with an error message.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> Yeah, but it gets you into dependency hell as you follow
>> the tree of dependencies down.
>
> You must either install the dependencies from some distro
> (which will bring their dependencies, recursively), or build
> them yourself. There's no way around that. The good news are
> that you need only do that once.

You can install the dependencies from the repositories (one
time as you say) and build the latest Emacs manually, every
day or once a year, whichever is up to you.

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
>>> Yeah, but it gets you into dependency hell as you follow
>>> the tree of dependencies down.
>>
>> You must either install the dependencies from some distro
>> (which will bring their dependencies, recursively), or build
>> them yourself. There's no way around that. The good news are
>> that you need only do that once.
>
> You can install the dependencies from the repositories (one
> time as you say) and build the latest Emacs manually, every
> day or once a year, whichever is up to you.

Agreed to both of you.  Installing the dependencies via the standard
system package manager gives you the (illusionary?) feeling that the
dependencies are okay with everything else on the system.  Using
something like flatpak gives you the feeling that the dependencies are
in a safe sandbox and won't effect the system, but potentially increases
disk space usage (a strong consideration on a smallish Chromebook).
Building yourself is time consuming (especially on a Chromebook! [CBs go
to sleep when you walk away!]) and increases diisk space usage.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Agreed to both of you.  Installing the dependencies via the standard
> system package manager gives you the (illusionary?) feeling that the
> dependencies are okay with everything else on the system.

Dunno about the feelings - but the package managers job is to _ensure_
that dependencies are ok.  There can be conflicts that have to be
resolved (before anything is changed on disk).  Then you should
keep an eye on what you are doing or what the automatic resolver
suggests - before confirming a suggestion that will remove the complete
desktop environment you are just using at the moment.

Nothing will just break because you install some additional packages.
That's just - feelings.

> Building yourself is time consuming (especially on a Chromebook! [CBs go
> to sleep when you walk away!]) and increases diisk space usage.

You can use the -j switch to build using multiple CPUs in parallel (when
you have them).  I am using "make -j4" and that builds Emacs completely
in few minutes on a really old Laptop.  A rebuild is often much faster
anyway (when not everything has to be build from scratch).

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Agreed to both of you.  Installing the dependencies via the standard
>> system package manager gives you the (illusionary?) feeling that the
>> dependencies are okay with everything else on the system.
>
> Dunno about the feelings - but the package managers job is to _ensure_
> that dependencies are ok.  There can be conflicts that have to be
> resolved (before anything is changed on disk).  Then you should
> keep an eye on what you are doing or what the automatic resolver
> suggests - before confirming a suggestion that will remove the complete
> desktop environment you are just using at the moment.
>
> Nothing will just break because you install some additional packages.
> That's just - feelings.

:-)

>> Building yourself is time consuming (especially on a Chromebook! [CBs go
>> to sleep when you walk away!]) and increases diisk space usage.
>
> You can use the -j switch to build using multiple CPUs in parallel (when
> you have them).  I am using "make -j4" and that builds Emacs completely
> in few minutes on a really old Laptop.  A rebuild is often much faster
> anyway (when not everything has to be build from scratch).

True.  I'll play with "-j".

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

> Installing the dependencies via the standard system package
> manager gives you the (illusionary?) feeling that the
> dependencies are okay with everything else on the system.
> Using something like flatpak gives you the feeling that the
> dependencies are in a safe sandbox and won't effect the
> system, but potentially increases disk space usage (a strong
> consideration on a smallish Chromebook). Building yourself
> is time consuming (especially on a Chromebook! [CBs go to
> sleep when you walk away!]) and increases diisk space usage.

The disk space required seems to be 1.5G. It compiles pretty
quickly on my 3600 Mhz quad-core. I don't know if that is
a fast or slow computer, it seems fast to me but at the same
time I would be surprised if I have the faster computer
out there.

One thing I know tho, Emacs, with native compilation, is
certainly fast enough for me!

As for the package aspect which you seem to return to over and
over, I must admit I have not thought of that in connection to
the compile-manually-or-not issue, so I leave that without
comments ;)

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

> Building yourself is time consuming [...]

Try this make command:

  make -s -j -k

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

>> Is this about concise and comprehensive instructions for
>> how to build Emacs? In such cases, I've many times found
>> the "Linux from scratch!" site very useful. In this case,
>> read here:
>>
>>   https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/emacs.html
>
> Useful, but for Emacs 28.2. The script I followed above got
> me 30.0.50. I may rethink being bleeding edge.
>
> Your URL link (sort of) assumes a GTK rather than Lucid
> X-toolkit. The above script seems to assume no-toolkit.

It is just an option, you can remove it if you like.

The option you really want is to build Emacs
--with-native-compilation as that is a killer feature and
makes Emacs much faster.

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> David Masterson wrote:
>
>>> Is this about concise and comprehensive instructions for
>>> how to build Emacs? In such cases, I've many times found
>>> the "Linux from scratch!" site very useful. In this case,
>>> read here:
>>>
>>>   https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/postlfs/emacs.html
>>
>> Useful, but for Emacs 28.2. The script I followed above got
>> me 30.0.50. I may rethink being bleeding edge.
>>
>> Your URL link (sort of) assumes a GTK rather than Lucid
>> X-toolkit. The above script seems to assume no-toolkit.
>
> It is just an option, you can remove it if you like.

Thought about that, but I think I then have to figure out the GTK or
Lucid stuff (w/ dependencies) to pull in.

> The option you really want is to build Emacs
> --with-native-compilation as that is a killer feature and
> makes Emacs much faster.

Building 30.0.5 took a long time.  I think the Chromebook went to sleep
overnight and only finished when I came back.

First test of it suggests I need to rethink my .emacs.  I'm getting
warnings about package 'autoload' being deprecated as well as a ton of
warnings of "free variable" and "docstring".  If I have to rebuild my
Emacs package library, I'll probably backtrack to 28.2 and see what
happens.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> First test of it suggests I need to rethink my .emacs.  I'm getting
> warnings about package 'autoload' being deprecated

That's expected: "NEWS.29":

| ** The autoload.el library is now obsolete.
| It is superseded by the new loaddefs-gen.el library.

I had gotten that warning, too, but I don't recall what I did to get rid
of it.

> as well as a ton of warnings of "free variable"

These are likely errors (often typos).

> and "docstring".

The compiler also checks some stuff in docstrings.  I guess you are
seeing quoting related messages: since quote characters are changed to
these fancy Unicode quotes in *Help* now, you must quote quotes
specially in code examples (using "\\=") .  The compiler detects those
quotes that are obviously not part of a `' pair.


Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>> and "docstring".
>
> The compiler also checks some stuff in docstrings.  I guess you are
> seeing quoting related messages: since quote characters are changed to
> these fancy Unicode quotes in *Help* now, you must quote quotes
> specially in code examples (using "\\=") .  The compiler detects those
> quotes that are obviously not part of a `' pair.

I think it was something about docstring width.

But I've spent too much time on this.  I'll keep my build of Emacs
30.0.50, but I'll keep using 27.1 for now,  I was going to try to snap
Emacs 28.2 in, but I've found that snap (squashfs) doesn't work in the
Chromebook virtual machine.  Another thing to look at later.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> I think it was something about docstring width.
>
> But I've spent too much time on this.

Don't want to suggest which Emacs version to use - but for your private
stuff, you can just ignore those warnings about docstrings (or just turn
them off, locally).  You have no disadvantages to fear when using that
code with the new Emacs version.  The compiler warnings just have been
improved, there are more checks.  If something really doesn't work, then
there is a high chance that the same code will fail in older Emacs
versions, too.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> I think it was something about docstring width.
>>
>> But I've spent too much time on this.
>
> Don't want to suggest which Emacs version to use - but for
> your private stuff, you can just ignore those warnings about
> docstrings (or just turn them off, locally). You have no
> disadvantages to fear when using that code with the new
> Emacs version. The compiler warnings just have been
> improved, there are more checks. If something really doesn't
> work, then there is a high chance that the same code will
> fail in older Emacs versions, too.

But I agree that whole system is cool!

Cred to the guys who did the byte compiler! ...

Other than that, I've lost touch with this discussion, maybe
you guys are right, maybe it is complicated? :)

But it's because it is more complicated to talk about it, than
to do it. Just a compilation of a damn program ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> I think it was something about docstring width.
>>
>> But I've spent too much time on this.
>
> Don't want to suggest which Emacs version to use - but for
> your private stuff, you can just ignore those warnings about
> docstrings (or just turn them off, locally). You have no
> disadvantages to fear when using that code with the new
> Emacs version. The compiler warnings just have been
> improved, there are more checks.

No kidding, but there should be a clear line what warnings are
considered unimportant and maybe people don't care to get rid
of them.

Warnings should only be when there is a WARNING not trying to
enforce some convention or habit for no real practical reason,
also bugs are often introduced when fixing bugs, so one
shouldn't "overfix" them.

I'm saying this just generally, with no real understanding
what warning makes sense to have and what doesn't.

But bugs one understands very well can be fun to fix, but it
is just because using Emacs is fun.

The right way if one assumed "unlimited resources for the
cause", someone would write a byte-compiler that didn't echo
trivial warnings, instead it would change the source
automatically into the prefered form unless one said no, in
what case nothing would happen.

That wouldn't even be AI - it would be better - because it
would be compiler design, obviously fixing docstrings can't be
compared to that - unless the compiler fixes the
docstrings, maybe.

And after that maybe one could merge AI and compiler design ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Michael Heerdegen wrote:
>
> >> I think it was something about docstring width.
> >>
> >> But I've spent too much time on this.
> >
> > Don't want to suggest which Emacs version to use - but for
> > your private stuff, you can just ignore those warnings about
> > docstrings (or just turn them off, locally). You have no
> > disadvantages to fear when using that code with the new
> > Emacs version. The compiler warnings just have been
> > improved, there are more checks.
>
> No kidding, but there should be a clear line what warnings are
> considered unimportant and maybe people don't care to get rid
> of them.

None of them is unimportant!

I just think all the problems are not new in the OPs init file, they
just had not being discovered until now (and there were the obsoletion
warnings).  So using the old Emacs version is as good as using a master
build and ignore the warnings (for now) - that's what I wanted to say.

> Warnings should only be when there is a WARNING not trying to
> enforce some convention or habit for no real practical reason,
> also bugs are often introduced when fixing bugs, so one
> shouldn't "overfix" them.

From participating in emacs-dev I can tell that this is not happening.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:
>
>> Michael Heerdegen wrote:
>>
>> >> I think it was something about docstring width.
>> >>
>> >> But I've spent too much time on this.
>> >
>> > Don't want to suggest which Emacs version to use - but for
>> > your private stuff, you can just ignore those warnings about
>> > docstrings (or just turn them off, locally). You have no
>> > disadvantages to fear when using that code with the new
>> > Emacs version. The compiler warnings just have been
>> > improved, there are more checks.
>>
>> No kidding, but there should be a clear line what warnings are
>> considered unimportant and maybe people don't care to get rid
>> of them.
>
> None of them is unimportant!
>
> I just think all the problems are not new in the OPs init file, they
> just had not being discovered until now (and there were the obsoletion
> warnings).  So using the old Emacs version is as good as using a master
> build and ignore the warnings (for now) - that's what I wanted to say.

My init file seems to not have a problem in Emacs 27.1.  I have not
investigated all of what's happening in 30.0.50, but it's probably
changes that haven't been rolled into the versions of packages I have in
~/.emacs.d/elpa yet.

The thing that bothered me was getting warnings at regular intervals
from Hyperbole, but I haven't checked why.  Probably a background timer
of some sort.

>> Warnings should only be when there is a WARNING not trying to
>> enforce some convention or habit for no real practical reason,
>> also bugs are often introduced when fixing bugs, so one
>> shouldn't "overfix" them.
>
> From participating in emacs-dev I can tell that this is not happening.

The deprecation warnings are important in telling the user to keep an
eye for a new version of a package (ie. run package-update from time to
time), but should be something you can turn off after you've seen it.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

> The thing that bothered me was getting warnings at regular
> intervals from Hyperbole, but I haven't checked why.
> Probably a background timer of some sort.

There are tons of warnings, it is like that.

>>> Warnings should only be when there is a WARNING not trying
>>> to enforce some convention or habit for no real practical
>>> reason, also bugs are often introduced when fixing bugs,
>>> so one shouldn't "overfix" them.
>>
>> From participating in emacs-dev I can tell that this is
>> not happening.
>
> The deprecation warnings are important in telling the user
> to keep an eye for a new version of a package (ie.
> run package-update from time to time), but should be
> something you can turn off after you've seen it.

They are for the developer audience, not for us who are just
installing their software by compiling it ...

Maybe they think, "how many guys can those guys be, ey?" :)

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> The deprecation warnings are important in telling the user to keep an
> eye for a new version of a package (ie. run package-update from time to
> time), but should be something you can turn off after you've seen it.

Better tell the package maintainer to fix it.

You can also just shut up the warnings - or just not use a not yet
released version of Emacs.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> The deprecation warnings are important in telling the user
>> to keep an eye for a new version of a package (ie.
>> run package-update from time to time), but should be
>> something you can turn off after you've seen it.
>
> Better tell the package maintainer to fix it.

But there should be no need to do that as the maintainer
surely sees them when compiling his own source?

> You can also just shut up the warnings

How?

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> > Better tell the package maintainer to fix it.
>
> But there should be no need to do that as the maintainer
> surely sees them when compiling his own source?

Sure - unless she or he doesn't see them in her/his setup (in particular
if warnings only appear in unreleased Emacs versions).  Some maintainers
also don't care.

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> > You can also just shut up the warnings
>
> How?

Which ones and when?  Did you have a look into the manual?

Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

>> No kidding, but there should be a clear line what warnings
>> are considered unimportant and maybe people don't care to
>> get rid of them.
>
> None of them is unimportant!

Not in terms of technology, but in terms of the
human/technology interface maybe, because if compilation
buffers are always flooded by stuff that no one really expects
to fix - I mean, if that's the case - then maybe an interface
solution how to mute them would be useful.

> I just think all the problems are not new in the OPs init
> file, they just had not being discovered until now (and
> there were the obsoletion warnings). So using the old Emacs
> version is as good as using a master build and ignore the
> warnings (for now) - that's what I wanted to say.
>
>> Warnings should only be when there is a WARNING not trying
>> to enforce some convention or habit for no real practical
>> reason, also bugs are often introduced when fixing bugs, so
>> one shouldn't "overfix" them.
>
> From participating in emacs-dev I can tell that this is
> not happening.

Okay, so why aren't they fixed then? I see it all the time
from not just compiling but also from native compilation and
compilations from just a few packages I have from there.
Believe me, there are TONS of warnings!

As you know, Emacs has a bunch of tools and commands how to
improve the style of packages, docstrings, maybe some other
things. They are useful and you don't get annoyed by them and
whatever they can correct in your files, because that is what
you want should happen. However here, it is about compiling
stuff, then you don't really care what style-points other
people didn't score, at that point it is about installing, not
improving one's Elisp skills.

So like I said, one could have an option to mute certain
warnings etc ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Not in terms of technology, but in terms of the
> human/technology interface maybe, because if compilation
> buffers are always flooded by stuff that no one really expects
> to fix - I mean, if that's the case - then maybe an interface
> solution how to mute them would be useful.

No, it's not the case.

> Okay, so why aren't they fixed then? I see it all the time
> from not just compiling but also from native compilation and
> compilations from just a few packages I have from there.
> Believe me, there are TONS of warnings!

Are those tons in Emacs, or in third-party stuff?

> So like I said, one could have an option to mute certain
> warnings etc ...

Eh - there are?

My guess is that most of the warnings you are annoyed from are from
native compilation (which is new and not the default and not even used
by all developers, and tends to emit much more warnings than byte
compilation).

But wasn't it you who advertised everybody should use the newest Emacs
and enable the newest features and grow with the outcome?  And you
haven't looked for a way to turn the warnings off (or handle them in
some other way)?


Michael.

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Michael Heerdegen wrote:

> And you haven't looked for a way to turn the warnings off
> (or handle them in some other way)?

You see warnings when you compile Emacs, when native
compilation happens and when you install or upgrade stuff from
the package manager. So there are three occasions for that.

But the best way not to see the warnings is for them to be
fixed by the person who is writing that code ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

> First test of it suggests I need to rethink my .emacs.
> I'm getting warnings about package 'autoload' being
> deprecated as well as a ton of warnings of "free variable"
> and "docstring". If I have to rebuild my Emacs package
> library, I'll probably backtrack to 28.2 and see
> what happens.

If you byte-compile your .emacs and all your other Elisp that is
loaded, it will get much faster and also you will hear what
improvements can be made, often they are a quick fixes that
are also interesting, think of it as modernization or
home improvement.

As for warnings that come when you compile Emacs, and that can
include the compilation from source, byte compilation, or
native compilation, those are often also quick fixes of the
same type and hopefully will dissappear since they should be
low-hanging fruits for the maintainers.

Because the Emacs source should set the bar for Elisp hackers
all around the world ...

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[David Masterson]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I think I once started into building emacs from scratch without knowing
>> much about apt or anything about snap, flathub, or guix.  I quickly
>> started running into installation of large numbers of other dependencies
>> that looked like they would require too much overwriting of system
>> libraries.
>
> Not really: those dependencies are "-dev" named packages that are used
> _only_ for building software.  These don't overwrite system libraries.
>
> Of course you also must install the tools to build emacs (compiler etc),
> but I don't recall that the dependencies of those were problematic or
> much different from the dependencies of other software.  And the package
> manager of the OS always ensures that all installed packages have acceptable
> versions of libraries installed.
>
> First and foremost it's important that you understand what you are
> doing.  If you don't have a good feeling, don't do it.

Yeah, I retired 10 years ago and I'm out of practice...

I think I'll look into the snap install of Emacs 28.2.  It's a step...

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[tomas]

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On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 06:26:30PM -0700, David Masterson wrote:
> <tomas@tuxteam.de> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 03:25:00AM +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> >
> >> Conclusion: You are allowed to use the latest Emacs even if
> >> you use Debian :)
> >
> > Absolutely.
> 
> But, if you want to use latest Emacs on stable Debian, do you have to
> build Emacs yourself.  If so, do you have to pull in (a lot of) packages
> needed to build Emacs, but are not in stable Debian?  Then, do you have
> to go through the process of updating these packages to build a clean
> Emacs when you update to a new version of Emacs?

I compile Emacs somewhat irregularly under Debian stable (currently
bullseye). I haven't ever needed anything which hasn't been in the
distro (of course, you'll have to install the appropriate build and
-dev packages, but once you get the hang of it, that isn't hard).

I never liked flats, snaps and hubs.

Cheers
-- 
t

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Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Fri, 26 May 2023 06:28:33 +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de said:

    tomas> On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 06:26:30PM -0700, David Masterson wrote:
    >> <tomas@tuxteam.de> writes:
    >> 
    >> > On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 03:25:00AM +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:
    >> >
    >> >> Conclusion: You are allowed to use the latest Emacs even if
    >> >> you use Debian :)
    >> >
    >> > Absolutely.
    >> 
    >> But, if you want to use latest Emacs on stable Debian, do you have to
    >> build Emacs yourself.  If so, do you have to pull in (a lot of) packages
    >> needed to build Emacs, but are not in stable Debian?  Then, do you have
    >> to go through the process of updating these packages to build a clean
    >> Emacs when you update to a new version of Emacs?

    tomas> I compile Emacs somewhat irregularly under Debian stable (currently
    tomas> bullseye). I haven't ever needed anything which hasn't been in the
    tomas> distro (of course, you'll have to install the appropriate build and
    tomas> -dev packages, but once you get the hang of it, that isn't hard).

'apt-get build-dep emacs' is enough on Debian. Emacs tries very hard
not to depend on too-new library versions.

Robert
-- 

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[tomas]

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On Fri, May 26, 2023 at 01:34:14PM +0200, Robert Pluim wrote:
> >>>>> On Fri, 26 May 2023 06:28:33 +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de said:

[...]

>     tomas> I compile Emacs somewhat irregularly under Debian stable (currently
>     tomas> bullseye). I haven't ever needed anything which hasn't been in the
>     tomas> distro [...]

> 'apt-get build-dep emacs' is enough on Debian. Emacs tries very hard
> not to depend on too-new library versions.

But note that the dependencies of a "newer" Emacs might grow during stable's
lifetime.

In any case, I usually try to find out the dependencies, since I'm interested
in learning them while building.

Cheers
-- 
t

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Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Fri, 26 May 2023 14:06:25 +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de said:

    tomas> On Fri, May 26, 2023 at 01:34:14PM +0200, Robert Pluim wrote:
    >> >>>>> On Fri, 26 May 2023 06:28:33 +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de said:

    tomas> [...]

    tomas> I compile Emacs somewhat irregularly under Debian stable (currently
    tomas> bullseye). I haven't ever needed anything which hasn't been in the
    tomas> distro [...]

    >> 'apt-get build-dep emacs' is enough on Debian. Emacs tries very hard
    >> not to depend on too-new library versions.

    tomas> But note that the dependencies of a "newer" Emacs might grow during stable's
    tomas> lifetime.

They might, but theyʼre rarely hard dependencies, eg treesitter is
entirely optional

Robert
-- 

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson wrote:

>>> Conclusion: You are allowed to use the latest Emacs even
>>> if you use Debian :)
>>
>> Absolutely.
>
> But, if you want to use latest Emacs on stable Debian, do
> you have to build Emacs yourself.

For the very latest Emacs version, yes, but that's not
difficult to do if you'd like to do it. [1]

But there is also the backport solution [2] where you'd get
the Emacs version that will appear in the next Debian release,
now the testing one, compiled for Debian stable. This will
perhaps not be the very latest version, but more recent than
what you get with stable.

Third option, you can also manipulate the apt system manually,
if you find a source that provides the latest Emacs with that
method. I've done this for mpv [3] with help from Dutch
friends. [4] Maybe they offer the same for Emacs, no idea,
I'll CC and ask.

> If so, do you have to pull in (a lot of) packages needed to
> build Emacs, but are not in stable Debian?

I did four and they are all in stable.

emacs-install-prepare () {
    sudo apt-get -qq update
    sudo apt-get install build-essential debian-goodies libgccjit-10-dev
    sudo apt-get build-dep emacs
    mkdir -p $emacs_dir
}

[1] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/.zsh/install-emacs
[2] https://backports.debian.org/
[3] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/conf/.zsh/mpv-install
[4] https://fostips.com/install-mpv-media-player-debian/

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

Re: Resources for an old newbie ?

[Emanuel Berg]

Conclusion of discussion: 'git fetch' and 'git merge' can be
replaced by 'git pull'.

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