Compiling Emacs
                         ===============

Quite some time ago I started with a git clone of the Emacs sources
and compiled that.

From that time on, on a regular basis I do a git pull and recompile
Emacs.

Like all self compiled software, I manage the installation with GNU
Stow, see https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/.

Being Emacs, there is probably more than one way to compile it, and I
don't know if the way I compile Emacs is the best way, but it works
and has never failed.

Before you start, make sure you have the right dependencies installed.
The (not very big) list of packages to install is, of course, for
every operating system different.

                          Lucid toolkit
                          -------------


In the past, I had some problems with the GTK version, can't
remember exactly what it was, I guess some problems with the
interaction with the window manager (either ratpoison or dwm).

I changed to the Lucid toolkit, and all problems were gone.
From than on, I have sticked with Lucid.

                   Prepare to install with stow
                   ----------------------------


   mkdir -p /usr/local/stow/emacs

                        Initial git clone
                        -----------------


As mortal user:

   git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git
   ./autogen.sh
   ./configure --with-x-toolkit=lucid --prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs
   make bootstrap

As root:

   make install
   cd /usr/local/stow
   stow --ignore=dir emacs

After this, Emacs has been installed, with a number of
subdirectories, under /usr/local/stow/emacs:

   .
   |-- bin
   |   |-- ctags
   |   |-- ebrowse
   |   |-- emacs -> emacs-30.0.50
   |   |-- emacs-30.0.50
   |   |-- emacsclient
   |   `-- etags
   |-- include
   |   `-- emacs-module.h
   |-- lib
   |   `-- systemd
   |-- libexec
   |   `-- emacs
   `-- share
       |-- applications
       |-- emacs
       |-- icons
       |-- info
       |-- man
       `-- metainfo

The command stow --ignore=dir emacs creates
symlinks in /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/include, and so on,
to these subdirectories.

                      Upgrade and recompile
                      ---------------------


Recompiling Emacs is not much different.

This is how I do this:

As mortal user:

   git pull
   git clean -dxf
   ./autogen.sh
   ./configure --with-x-toolkit=lucid --prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs
   make bootstrap

As root:

   cd /usr/local/stow
   stow -D --ignore=dir emacs

   rm -rf emacs-old
   mv emacs emacs-old

   cd [git clone dir]
   make install

   cd /usr/local/stow
   stow --ignore=dir emacs

This moves the current install from /usr/local/stow/emacs
to /usr/local/stow/emacs-old, creates a new directory
/usr/local/stow/emacs and installs the new version there.

This way, if the new compiled version has any problems, I can always
revert to the last compiled version. In practice, however, I have
never had to do this.

Also, on several boxes with the same OS (and OS-version), the
stow-directory can be shared, so compilation on only one system
is needed.

                         Upgrade packages
                         ----------------


After a recompile, I upgrade the packages in Emacs.

Happy Emacsing !


Last edited: $Date: 2023/04/12 10:33:21 $

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