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JQ’s Notes

How to build emacs from source

·109 words·1 min
  1. Clone emacs repo 
    git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/emacs.git
cd emacs
  2. Checkout latest 
    git tag # find the latest
git checkout LATEST_TAG
  3. Install Build dependencies 
    sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential autoconf texinfo \
     libgtk-3-dev libxpm-dev libjpeg-dev libgif-dev libtiff-dev \
     libgnutls28-dev libncurses-dev libjansson-dev \
     libtree-sitter-dev libgccjit-13-dev
    libgccjit should be the same version to your gcc version.
  4. Generate Build system 
    ./autogen.sh
  5. Configure 
    ./configure --with-native-compilation --with-tree-sitter --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
  6. Build 
    make -j$(nproc)
  7. Install 
    sudo make install
  8. Create a desktop launcher
    1. Create the desktop file 
      mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
vim ~/.local/share/applications/emacs.desktop
    2. Paste this: 
      [Desktop Entry]
Name=Emacs (Source Build)
GenericName=Text Editor
Comment=GNU Emacs built from source
Exec=/usr/local/bin/emacs %F
Icon=emacs
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;TextEditor;
StartupWMClass=Emacs
    3. Finally, run this 
      update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications