Datasheet
“main” (Installation and Administration) — 2004/6/25 — 13:29 — page 250 — #276
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10.2.8 Settings for GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a complex work environment. More information is avail-
able at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/. The following sec-
tions cover the configuration files processed when GNU Emacs is started.
On start-up, Emacs reads several files containing the settings of the user,
system administrator, and distributor for customization or preconfigura-
tion. The initialization file ~/.emacs is installed to the home directories
of the individual users from /etc/skel. .emacs, in turn, reads the file
/etc/skel/.gnu-emacs. If a user wants to customize the program, copy
.gnu-emacs to the home directory (with cp /etc/skel/.gnu-emacs
/.gnu-emacs) and make the desired settings there.
.gnu-emacs defines the file ~/.gnu-emacs-custom as custom-file.
If users make settings with the customize options, these are saved to ~/
.gnu-emacs-custom.
With SUSE LINUX, the emacs package installs the file site-start.el in
the directory /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp. The file site-start.
el is loaded before the initialization file ~/.emacs. Among other things,
site-start.el ensures that special configuration files distributed with
Emacs add-on packages (such as psgml) are loaded automatically. Config-
uration files of this type are located in /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp,
too, and always begin with suse-start-. The local system administrator
can specify system-wide settings in default.el.
More information about these files is available in the Emacs info file un-
der Init File: info:/emacs/InitFile. Information about how to disable
loading these files (if necessary) is also provided at this location.
The components of Emacs are split in several packages:
The base package emacs.
emacs-x11 (usually installed): the program with X11 support.
emacs-nox: the program without X11 support.
emacs-info: online documentation in info format.
emacs-el: the uncompiled library files in Emacs Lisp. These are not
required at run-time.
Numerous add-on packages can be installed if needed:
emacs-auctex (for LaTeX), psgml (for SGML and XML), gnuserv
(for client and server operation), and others.
250 10.2. Hints on Special Software Packages