RRC|BIOSTATISTICS

Emacs24 on Crunchbang

Option 1 for installing Emacs24 on Crunchbang Linux

This is the standard procedure for downloading Emacs24 on Crunchbang/Debian:

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$ wget -q -O - http://emacs.naquadah.org/key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo geany /etc/apt/sources.list
    deb http://emacs.naquadah.org/ stable/
    deb-src http://emacs.naquadah.org/ stable/
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot

Where emacs-snapshot is the equivalent of emacs24. wget retrieves files using HTTP/FTP transfer protocol (ie: download stuff from the web), but you need an authentication key first, hence the apt-key command. You need to do another authentication step by adding the website links to your “trusted sources” list. Geany is built-in to Crunchbang, so use it to open up your sources.list file and add the two sources starting with deb

If this installation process works on the first try, then my hat off to you! If not, read on.

The Dependency Problem

So I assume you’ve encountered the following error message:

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The following packages have unmet dependencies:
emacs-snapshot : Depends: emacs-snapshot-bin-common (= 2:20131005-1~bpo70+1) but it is not going to be installed
                  Depends: libm17n-0 (>= 1.6.1) but it is not installable
                  Depends: libotf0 (>= 0.9.11) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Aww Crunchbang, why you gotta be like that?

To solve this problem, you need to manually install the missing depends. They are not available separately, but are bundled in two different debian packages, “Wheezy” (deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian wheezy main) or “Sid” (deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main). From what I’ve read on the forums, most Crunchbang users download the “Sid” package immediately after startup, so that might be the best choice.

Add your dependencies to your source list

Go back to your sources.list with the command geany /etc/apt/sources.list And add either one of the links above so your sources list has these three links listed:

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deb http://emacs.naquadah.org/ stable/
deb-src http://emacs.naquadah.org/ stable/
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main

Finally, Emacs24!

Now you can do sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot Go ahead and create a new .emacs file with the command emacs .emacs and add this line so you don’t have to see that ugly splashpage for another second.

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;; Disable splash page & "For More help..."
(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message
  "your login name")

I…I just don’t like using the trackpad any more than I have to.

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