How do you install external packages in emacs?

Debian 11 user, using the default available emacs version: Package: emacs (1:27.1+1-3.1) Since I know debian tends to be behind as far as versions go I tried to follow the documentation [here](https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForDebian) and use the elpa packages available through apt. Starting with elpa-evil (since I am new to emacs and want the vim bindings) I looked in list-packages after installing it via apt. Rather than a built-in package evil was listed as an external package. I may simply have worded my search wrong, but I couldn't find a way to install since the install package command could not find evil, and list-package info said it was unsigned with no option to install. I wanted to know if I am misunderstanding something stupidly obvious since I am new, or if I should just attempt to use the git version and risk it not being compatible.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your question. There is an emacs-internal way to install (m)elpa packages that is completely agnostic of your operating system, did you try that? Because if so, it should not matter whether you are on Debian or Arch or whatever. I only install emacs stuff through my package manager if it depends on external tools like mail services. Failing all that, you can always clone the corresponding git repository and just load the provided .el files like in the olden days. Apart from not automatically resolving dependencies, that should theoretically do exactly the same as installing an emacs package via some other means.

If you installed the elpa-evil package via apt, then you don't need to install it again! it's already installed. What you want to do at this point (I think) is *enable* it! That is to say, to activate it. It's installed system-wide, so all users *can* use it, but it's not automatically enabled, because not all users will necessarily *want* to use it on every system where it might be installed. You can test it to see if it's installed properly with the command `M-x evil-mode`, which should toggle it on and off. If it seems to be working, you should be able to enable it permanently simply by adding `(evil-mode 1)` to your init file. That's literally all that's required when using Debian. Don't worry about the Emacs package system. That's mainly for *personal* packages installed in your home directory, not system-wide packages installed in `/usr` or `/usr/local`. I use apt for all my Emacs packages, and have never once touched Emacs's own package system, except as a brief experiment.

> Rather than a built-in package evil was listed as an external package. Built-in packages are the packages that are part of Emacs. These are the *.el files you'll find under "/usr/share/emacs/27.1/lisp/". Ones that you install through your distro's package manager will be listed as [external](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Package-Statuses.html). Even once installed, most packages need to be turned on some way or another. Usually you can do that from the customize interface. You would do "M-x customize-group RET evil RET" and browse the settings for the one that turns the package on. I'm not sure this is possible with Evil, as it's a more complex package than most. So you might need to edit your init file directly as xtifr indicated.

....thank you. I legitimately thought it wasn't installed since it didn't say installed. I already had the ~/.emacs edited with (require 'evil) (evil-mode 1) and simply never thought to check with the vim commands. Thank you for revealing my ignorance.

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