Emacs: How to Build Emacs from git Repository
This page shows you how to compile emacs from developer version of source code on git repository. I assume you are using Ubuntu Linux.
![building emacs eshell 2017 07 25](i/building_emacs_eshell_2017-07-25.png)
Building Emacs from Git
If you have not build emacs on Linux before, you need to first install built tools and dependent libraries that emacs use. See: How to Build Emacs on Linux. Basically, just run the following first:
# install essential build tools sudo apt-get install build-essential # get all dependencies of a previous emacs version sudo apt-get build-dep emacs25
Now clone emacs from its github mirror.
# clone emacs from github mirror git clone https://github.com/mirrors/emacs.git
It'll create a dir named emacs
in the current dir. [see git Tutorial]
if you have build from git before, you might want to clean your repo first.
cd ~/mygit/emacs # discard stuff from last build git reset --hard # delete all of the last build stuff git clean -xdf # get latest update git pull https://github.com/mirrors/emacs.git
cd
to the emacs git repo. In the dir, there's a file named INSTALL.REPO
that tells you how to build from repository. But, basically, you just run:
# build emacs from git repo cd ~/mygit/emacs ./autogen.sh ./configure make bootstrap make
The whole process will take about 20 minutes.
When done, the emacs binary will be at dir src
. For example, you can start it by:
~/git/emacs/src/emacs
You can prepend the path to your shell, so next time you just type “emacs” to launch. Put the following line at bottom of your ~/.bashrc
.
# prepend emacs path to environment variable PATH PATH=$HOME/git/emacs/src:$PATH # make sure the dir is correct
That's all!
After a few months, you can git pull
the emacs git repository to get update, then compile again.