2

I have updated emacs-snapshot earlier today and it broke my Emacs installation into pieces (it is Ubuntu 14.04). It somehow removed whole emacs24 package so now I have no even emacs-client installed.

apt-cache policy emacs-snapshot

shows that latest version is installed but emacs-snapshot is not known command in bash and find / -type f -name 'emacs-snapshot*'

can't find any binary.

How can this be fixed?

Proposed actions:

$ dpkg-query -L emacs-snapshot
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/emacs-snapshot
/usr/share/doc/emacs-snapshot/changelog.gz
/usr/share/doc/emacs-snapshot/copyright

It seems like just some docs are installed from here.

serv-inc
  • 816
  • 6
  • 26
foki
  • 886
  • 8
  • 22
  • I'm not familiar with Ubuntu's packaging procedures, but I'd try to `dpkg-query -L emacs-snapshot` to figure out what exactly was that you've installed. Maybe "snapshot" implies installing the sources for building Emacs (similar to `yum-builddep`?). – wvxvw Feb 04 '16 at 22:41
  • It is https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-elisp/+archive/ubuntu/ppa. Looks to me like installing snapshot version from emacs git repository and it packs a binary made of it called emacs-snaphot (or it was until now). It was working until today's update. Look abo-abo's answare http://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/12772/prebuilt-ubuntu-emacs-25-1 – foki Feb 04 '16 at 22:59
  • 2
    I can confirm that recent `.deb` packages from this PPA are ~3Kib in size -- definitely broken. However, this is a question about a particular Ubuntu package from a personal -- unofficial -- package archive (PPA), not really about Emacs itself. I would try contacting the maintainer of this package (Robert Bruce Park ) or the owner of the PPA, [Michael Olson](https://launchpad.net/~mwolson). Other Emacs users (including *expert* users) will not be able to help you with this, so I don't think this is the right place for this question. – Constantine Feb 05 '16 at 04:51
  • I too can confirm this - it gladly did not break my emacs-24 install but all emacs-snapshot binaries are gone – Random Dev Feb 05 '16 at 16:47
  • 1
    I've identified the problem as being changes that emacs developers have made to their `autogen.sh` script and I've updated the packaging to match. I've submitted a rebuild request to launchpad and all should be well soon. – robru Feb 05 '16 at 22:58
  • Is there any way you could put back the last good build in the meantime? I know it's a lot to ask since those using snapshot builds should be prepared for breakage, but it would be very nice if you could do this. Either way, thanks for all you do packaging these builds for us! – Ibrahim Feb 06 '16 at 00:30
  • Just kidding, looks like fixed packages are up. Thanks! – Ibrahim Feb 06 '16 at 02:12
  • @Robru apt-get install is still facing problems within my installation. It reports unmet dependencies: `emacs-snapshot : Depends: emacs-snapshot-common (= 2:201602060002~ubuntu14.04.1) but it is not going to be installed` while emacs-snapshot-common version available through PPA is `2:201602052046~ubuntu14.04.1` – foki Feb 06 '16 at 13:28
  • @Ibrahim Most likely it is an off topic here (maybe just a little more than this whole question) but the answer is - yes. Actually, `apt-get install` supports package versions. Look http://askubuntu.com/questions/138284/how-to-downgrade-a-package-via-apt-get – foki Feb 06 '16 at 13:36
  • @ibrahim I've updated the packaging so that if the packages come out empty again, the build will fail and you'll get to keep your working packages – robru Feb 07 '16 at 19:35
  • @foki what version of Ubuntu are you using? Trusty i386 is experiencing a build failure but everything else should be working. – robru Feb 07 '16 at 19:36
  • @Robru it's Trusty amd64. – foki Feb 08 '16 at 08:55
  • indeed, trusty amd64 is building -snapshot package but failing to produce useful binaries or other needed components. I'm not sure why the failure is different on amd64 vs i386. There's a thread on emacs-devel about this so they seem to be aware of the issue. Either they'll fix it or they won't, in which case trusty is officially unsupported by emacs developers. – robru Feb 10 '16 at 02:08
  • @Robru everything is fine now. Thank you! – foki Feb 11 '16 at 15:00

0 Answers0