emacs and Ubuntu

Getting there. After most of the day figuring out how to get emacs 22.1 into graphical mode (Using Gtk rather than a text mode within a window), I'm there, but it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth and a feeling that Ubuntu isn't quite as nice as it's made out to be. This was the final post to the emacs-list. Again, thanks to those who helped.

I found the following Ubuntu packages necessary prior to build.
All were found (with deps) using synaptic package manager.


build-essential      Y
libc6-dev            Y
 *1   libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-bin libgtk2.0-common libgtk2.0-dev
libice-dev           Y
libice6-dev          Y
libice6              Y
libjpeg62-dev        Y
libjpeg62            Y
libncurses5-dev      Y
libpng12-dev         Y
libpng12-0           Y
libsm-dev            Y
libtiff4-dev         Y
libtiff4             Y
libx11-dev           Y
libxext-dev          Y
libxmu-dev           Y
libxmu-headers       Y
libxpm-dev           Y
libxt-dev            Y
xlibs-dev            Y


Issues.

libfig and libungif seemed to cause some contention.
No idea what they are.

Building, for a graphical interface. As root. Note that it only works
as an ordinary user... not as root! Don't be caught out as I was.


Download, from normal source.
gunzip

RTFM. Both the README and the INSTALL files.
You'll regret it if you don't.

./configure --prefix='/wherever/to/install' --with-x-toolkit=gtk \
            --with-sound=yes
            --without-toolkit-scroll-bars

make
make install.

Seems to put it into /usr/local/bin

Note. Adding any number of the following options:

  --without-xpm        for XPM image support
  --without-jpeg       for JPEG image support
  --without-tiff       for TIFF image support
  --without-gif        for GIF image support
  --without-png        for PNG image support

to the ./configure command will remove support for that type of graphic, and hence reduce the dependency list!

And to avoid the trap I neatly fell into (Thanks for the explanation Tim X), build and test as an ordinary user, then run make install as root. For whatever reason, Ubuntu seems to think that root is too rufty tufty to need graphics.

From the INSTALL file, please note that the actual executables can be placed where you want, controlled by make install bindir=/usr/local/gnubin variable. There are also parameters to make that control the data files, the info files, man pages, executable files etc. Well worth a look, especially if you're experimenting with a new version and want to keep your known good emacs as is.

I received a long list of proposed packages and eventually, the list above is that which I now have installed. I'm still unsure if it's complete, or overly long. All I do know is that on FC6 emacs just built.

I'm very reluctant to go start the extra installations. I have a feeling I'll go running back to ground I'm slightly more familiar with, FC that is. At least I now know how to dump the dreaded lvm.

Another portability issue arose. I was backing up onto an 80Gb disk, which I'd partitioned in FC6. There's something weird going on, because Ubuntu isn't doing a very good job of finding the disks and looking after them. Each time on boot I'm getting a fun of e2fsck. Each time it's bombing out. Either I need to format them again under Ubuntu or just disconnect them.