I've been waiting for this! Emacs 28 is in debian testing! Thanks Rob Browning!

Funnily enough, 28.2 just got stabilised in Gentoo too.

Emacs is quite easy to compile on Debian. I have been running Emacs 30 for a few days. Feels like I'm in the future 😄 Very good news though.

I've noticed that Debian stable uses older packages. I think the latest Emacs version is version 27 in the Debian-stable line. I was wondering if it's possible to install newer Emacs versions in Debian stable. Or are you using the Debian-Testing line?

[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2022-12/msg00682.html](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2022-12/msg00682.html) If a solution could be worked out before the feature freeze deadline native-compilation might also be the default.

There are particular software projects that are just easier to compile or install yourself on Debian, instead of using the official .deb packages. Emacs is one of them. It's just easier to manage this way. WordPress is another notorious example. (Some folks even compile their own Apache httpd.)

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All Linux can install Nix or Guix and enjoy a stream of rolling release software. No system pollution because what is installed purely uninstalls purely.

Just clone the emacs repo and configure && make Then to update git pull and recompile.

And have programs installed on my machine that aren't tracked by a package manager? No thank you. I left that life behind in windows/osx

Emacs gets that special privilege.

Try Portage? You can install it on any distro and it works kind of like Flatpak.

> And have programs installed on my machine that aren't tracked by a package manager? No thank you. I left that life behind in windows/osx That's why I use [checkinstall](https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/checkinstall) (running emacs 29 on debian stable here) Replace the final install step in the instructions with something like this: $ checkinstall --type=debian --install=no sudo make install then install the resulting package in the usual way, like: $ dpkg -i emacs_29.0.06-2022-11-30-dc0f2ec2dbf1-1-1_amd64.deb Package now installed: $ apt show emacs Package: emacs Version: 1:29.0.06-2022-11-30-dc0f2ec2dbf1-1-1 Status: install ok installed Priority: extra Section: checkinstall Maintainer: me@here Installed-Size: 19.1 MB Provides: emacs, emacsen Download-Size: unknown APT-Manual-Installed: no APT-Sources: /var/lib/dpkg/status Description: GNU Emacs 29.0.60 editor (with GTK+ GUI support) GNU Emacs 29.0.60 editor (with GTK+ GUI support) local build GNU Emacs 29.0.60 Development version dc0f2ec2dbf1 on HEAD branch; build date 2022-11-30. GNU Emacs 29.0.60 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.24, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2022-11-30

Or join the nix/guix/gentoo life, and have the best of both worlds. Emacs builds to your teste, can be precompiled and cached (e.g. `cachix`), and in the case of nix/guix its declarative and reproducible as well.

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IIRC Native-compilation is enabled. What Rob mentioned there is an issue with some weird setup (e.g. sbuild) where $HOME is not writable in which case native compilation may fail.

Beside checkinstall, you can also use stow (which I use) or guix or nix. All of them separate local things from OS things,and make ot possible to dr-install the local artifacts at will. I should probably write a blog post of how I do it.

Years ago I compiled my own KDE 3. Later, before systemd was in Debian, I made my own *.deb files if it. Today, people are a bit too focused on distros. A good amount of people forget that all of Linux is FOSS, and you can, if you want, install the latest -rc kernel, or Emacs from git. Nothing holds you back except fear, uncertainty, doubt (a.k.a. FUD). And sometimes knowledge or time. But you can work on the knowledge :-) Don't sit like the hare in front of the snake!

Do you still use Debian? I do whenever possible. For all its faults it's still the best, and it's amazing that it works as well as it does. >Today, people are a bit too focused on distros. A good amount of people forget that all of Linux is FOSS, snd you can, if you want, install the latest -rc kernel, or Emacs from git. Nothing holds you back except fear, uncertainty, doubt (a.k.a. FUD). And sometimes knowledge or time.But you can work on the knowledge :-) I completely agree. I used to do this a lot and either make my own packages or use symlink farms. It used to be normal to compile your own kernel, but I had a bad habit of messing up my lilo configuration and locking myself out of my system hehe. The nice thing about Debian is that it's reasonably compatible with FLOSS ideals. At one point I wanted to become an official Debian maintainer but couldn't find a mentor.

You don't even need to install it to /usr/local or whatever. Just add the Emacs-repo/{src,lib-src} to the PATH environment variable and call it a day.

Just as emacs 29 is readying for release...

Per the changelog, native compilation is enabled by default in debian, but they are going to disable it in special cases to work around bugs. https://salsa.debian.org/rlb/deb-emacs/-/blob/deb/emacs/d/sid/master/debian/changelog