Emacs on Windows: Install Linux Tools

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

Required Unix / Linux Commands for Emacs

Some of emacs's features require unix utilities.

if you don't need these features, you can ignore. else, you need to install it.

The essential ones are these:

ispell
needed for spell checking. e.g. Alt+x ispell-word, flyspell-buffer and others.
diff
needed to compare difference of text files. e.g. Alt+x diff
grep
needed for searching text in a dir. e.g. Alt+x grep and others.
find
needed for listing file names after search. e.g. Alt+x find-dired.

How to Install Unix Linux Tools

There are several ways to get linux tools for Microsoft Windows.

I recomment one of the following, best first:

  1. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
  2. chocolatey package manager. This lets you install many unix command line tools easily.
  3. Cygwin.

Alternatively, i recommend not rely on unix {find, grep, diff}, because they are 30 years old technology.

You can easily use PowerShell for unix find grep diff.

For find replace grep within emacs, try Emacs: Xah Find Replace (xah-find.el) 📦

Emacs on Microsoft Windows