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A GNU Emacs experience throught NixOS |
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2025-02-26 |
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Last edit: 2025-02-26 |
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I have always used |
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VSCode](https://code.visualstudio.com/) as a code editor. I've already tried us… |
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, but only for testing purposes and not with the aim of changing text editors. |
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This time, I decided to use a |
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FLOSS](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.html) code editor in the t… |
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indefinitely. This blog post is actually written with it. |
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It is none other than |
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Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/s/emacs/). For the convenience of writing and readin… |
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project. |
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## Why |
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Why did I leave |
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VSCode](https://code.visualstudio.com/) and decide to switch to [Emacs |
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? |
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### Leaving VSCode |
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Because it's a RAM-hungry graphics application. You shouldn't need that much me… |
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Also, I don't want all the additional features offered, such as file name and t… |
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VSCode |
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anymore, so it's time to say goodbye. |
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### Choosing Emacs |
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Of all the text editors out there, I chose |
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Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/s/emacs/). It's actually much more than that. In the… |
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. |
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> It is a programmable platform where text editing is one of the main points of… |
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Indeed, I see |
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Emacs |
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more as an operating system than as a text editor. The possibilities for confi… |
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Also, I find it an excellent UNIX citizen. The default keystroke sequences corr… |
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Another reason was to be able to modify any behavior, to be able to have an app… |
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## Learning |
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So I installed |
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Emacs |
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version 29.4 and started learning how to use it properly. |
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### Mastering Emacs, Mickey Pertersen |
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This book explained the important concepts of the application and gave me a sol… |
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Emacs |
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. Certain chapters, such as “The Theory of Movement” and “The Theory of E… |
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I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to start learning |
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Emacs |
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. |
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### Emacs Lisp Intro |
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I've also read the “Emacs Lisp Intro” written in |
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Emacs |
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as a manual. Since most of the code is written in |
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Emacs |
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Lisp, it's essential to understand the language, or at least know how to read … |
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For example, I needed to write some to display line numbers at the start of |
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org-present |
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mode, and to hide them at the end of minor mode execution. |
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### Environment |
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As I said earlier, |
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Emacs |
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is a platform with a whole host of features. This makes it all the more tempti… |
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Emacs |
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modes and packages, etc. |
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Staying in the same environment made me more productive and faster. For compute… |
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Emacs |
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can be configured like an IDE, precisely and fully controlled. |
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One last very important thing to know is that any piece of |
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Emacs |
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is documented, meaning that whatever I do or try to do, I can find documentati… |
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Emacs |
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is its own documentation. |
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## Configuration |
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### Via NixOS |
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Concerning the tool configuration, being on [NixOS](https://nixos.org/), I deci… |
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Emacs |
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module provided by the home-manager. To remain consistent with my current conf… |
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Emacs |
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package has its own Nix module. |
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Here's what the file structure looks like. |
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```text |
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modules/home/editors/emacs |
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├── default.nix |
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└── packages |
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├── auto-save |
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│ └── default.nix |
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├── dashboard |
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│ └── default.nix |
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├── dired |
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│ └── default.nix |
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├── doom-modeline |
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│ └── default.nix |
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├── ivy |
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│ └── default.nix |
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├── lsp-mode |
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│ ├── bash-language-server |
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│ │ └── default.nix |
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│ ├── default.nix |
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│ ├── dockerfile |
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│ │ └── default.nix |
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│ ├── gopls |
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│ │ └── default.nix |
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... |
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``` |
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These modules contain the dependencies, i.e. the |
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Emacs |
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packages and the |
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Emacs |
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Lisp configuration. |
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Here's an example with the |
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org-superstar |
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package. |
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```nix |
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{ |
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config, |
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lib, |
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namespace, |
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... |
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}: |
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let |
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inherit (lib) mkIf; |
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inherit (lib.${namespace}) mkBoolOpt; |
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cfg = config.${namespace}.editors.emacs.packages.org-superstar; |
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in |
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{ |
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options.${namespace}.editors.emacs.packages.org-superstar = { |
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enable = mkBoolOpt false "Whether or not to enable the emacs org-superstar … |
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}; |
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config = mkIf cfg.enable { |
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programs.emacs = { |
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extraPackages = (epkgs: [ epkgs.org-superstar ]); |
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extraConfig = '' |
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(use-package org-superstar |
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:ensure t |
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:after org |
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:hook (org-mode . org-superstar-mode) |
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:custom |
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(org-superstar-remove-leading-stars t) |
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(org-superstar-headline-bullets-list '("⁖" "✿" "▷" "✸"))) |
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''; |
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}; |
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}; |
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} |
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``` |
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## Notes taking on Emacs |
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Emacs |
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has a major mode called |
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Org |
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, which modifies |
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Emacs |
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behavior to create an environment suited to writing data in org format. It int… |
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Emacs |
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other features and keeps me in the application. |
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I used to take my notes with Obsidian. I refactored all my notes and converted … |
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Org |
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format. |
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## Conclusion |
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From now on, I intend to use |
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Emacs |
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as my main text editor, as well as for note-taking. |
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