Updating to Emacs 29 on Linux Mint

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planted: 02/01/2025last tended: 02/01/2025

1. Why?

Mainly so as to be able to use --init-directory.

But I'm sure there's other useful things that'll come with it.

Let's have a look: What's New in Emacs 29.1? - Mastering Emacs.

tree-sitter will probably have some benefits that I may or not notice. And pixel scroll precision will be nice.

I wonder if the native SQLite support will muss up org-roam (which makes use of SQLite) or whether it'll be fine out of the box.

2. How

Let's have a look at Updating to Emacs 28 on Linux Mint for reference…

Hmm, so that used a PPA. Has that PPA not got 29?

Nope… https://github.com/kelleyk/ppa-emacs/issues/34

There is another PPA: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntuhandbook1/+archive/ubuntu/emacs

However, if I use that, it gives an error dpkg: error processing archive /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-g9nwl5/03-emacs-common1%3a29.4+1-0build1~focalall.deb (–unpack): trying to overwrite '/usr/include/emacs-module.h', which is also in package emacs28 28.1~1.git5a223c7f2e-kk3+20.04 So - remove the previous package?

Clearly trying to write over something from the other PPA.

And that's broken apt set up now, great. emacs-common has unment dependencies.

Fixed that by removing some of the packages installed by that PPA.

OK, maybe I'll try a flatpak install…

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gnu.emacs.flatpakref
alias emacs29='flatpak run org.gnu.emacs'

It gets an error at startup. Seems to be this one:

https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/16122

The suggested fix, of adding

(setq gnutls-algorithm-priority "NORMAL:-VERS-TLS1.3")

didn't work for me.

I imagine if I update the spacemacs .emacs.d, then it'll work. But I was installing Emacs 29 to be able avoid amending my .emacs.d…

Bloody hell. I'll stick with 28 for now.

Checking that 28 still works OK after all this faffing…

3. Elsewhere

3.1. In my garden

Notes that link to this note (AKA backlinks).

3.3. Mentions

Recent changes. Source. Peer Production License.