I want to use several emacs configurations/versions simultaneously so that no configuration disturbs each other, each with their own configuration directory and elpa repository. I heard about the trick with symlinking ~/.emacs.d and ~/.emacs, but that is not what I want, because it'd be best if I can run my default emacs installation and simultaneously a testing installation (new emacs releases) or another setup like Spacemacs or Prelude.
Is there any decent way to do this?
I just did that using chemacs.
Considering you don't have an .emacs file in your home folder you can follow this instruction to install it:
Clone the Git repository, and run install.sh
$ git clone https://github.com/plexus/chemacs.git
$ cd chemacs
$ ./install.sh
you should get this message:
OK Creating symlink ~/.emacs -> /home/arne/chemacs/.emacs
If you already have an .emacs file, rename or move it somewhere.
Next step, create the file: .emacs-profiles.el in your home folder:
$ touch .emacs-profiles.el
Here is an example of the this file:
(("default" . ((user-emacs-directory . "~/.emacs.d")))
("spacemacs" . ((user-emacs-directory . "~/spacemacs"))))
Mine looks like this:
(("default" . ((user-emacs-directory . "~/.emacs.d"))) ;; DoomEmacs, my default emacs
("prelude" . ((user-emacs-directory . "~/emacsprelude/.emacs.d"))) ;; Prelude
("goodemacs" . ((user-emacs-directory . "~/myemacs/.emacs.d"))) ;; my own config
("spacemacs" . ((user-emacs-directory . "~/spacemacs/.emacs.d")))) ;; Spacemacs
Here I create the file ~/myemacs/.emacs.d/init.el, for my own config.
Now to use a config, I run one of the following command:
$ emacs --with-profile
$ emacs --with-profile myemacs
$ emacs --with-profile prelude
$ emacs --with-profile spacemacs
Hope this help.
Update:
There is a newer version of chemacs called chemacs2.
Update 2: Emacs 29 has now this feature built-in.
I wanted the same and stumbled across a tip at the Spacemacs Github site, so I came up with the following script, which assumes that alternate configurations are stored in ~/alternate-emacsen/NAME-OF-CONFIG. I use this eg. to test emacs26 pre-release while working with a plain emacs25 and being able to use spacemacs, doom emacs or any variant configuration whenever I want to.
The script resides in ~/bin and assumes that <name-of-config> and the name of the softlink which calls it are identical; eg. if you want to launch the config stored in ~/alternate-emacsen/deepin-emacs you need a softlink ~/bin/deepin-emacs.
Be sure to put .emacs.d inside the <name-of-config> directory since the latter is used as a fake home directory, so that the actual ~/.emacs.d and ~/.emacs do not get touched.
If you think this is useful or suits your needs, feel free to use it.
#!/bin/bash
# alternate-emacsen –– A bash script to launch Emacs in completely different
# configurations, like GNU default, Deepin Emacs,
# Spacemacs, CL server,… from their own config directory
# trees.
# Usage:
# – create a directory $HOME/alternate-emacsen/name-of-config, containing an
# .emacs.d with all the base configuration inside it. Put the init file into
# <name-of-config> if necessary.
# – create a link to this script, eg.
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/emacs-unstable
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/spacemacs
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/doom-emacs
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/deepin-emacs
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/prelude-emacs
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/emacsstarterkit
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/exwm
# ln -s $HOME/bin/alternate-emacsen.sh $HOME/bin/clemacsd
# – set $emacsbin below to the emacs version you prefer/use. or set it to
# /usr/bin/emacs for the system's default. I use emacs-25.2 with the
# Athena/Lucid X widget set as my default GUI (not GTK because I do not like
# it for several reasons), so it is set as default.
# – edit the emacs2x entries to reflect your preferences like in the previous
# step.
self="emacs config launcher";
emacsconfig=`basename -- "$0"`;
userhome=$HOME;
HOME=$HOME/alternate-emacsen/$emacsconfig;
test -d "$HOME" || { \
echo >&2 "$self: ERROR –– $HOME does not exist!";
exit 1;
};
# On my system, Emacs 23.2/GTK2 (in /usr/bin) is the default, but I prefer Emacs
# 25 with pure X11 Lucid interface. Also, the system default uses partly
# incompatible ELisp packages (both to Emacs 23 and Emacs 25), so I ignore them
# by not using /usr/share/* at all (the other Emacsen are compiled to reside in
# /usr/local and thus ignore the outer /usr tree).
emacsbin=/usr/local/bin/emacs-25.2-lucid;
sysdefaultemacs=/usr/bin/emacs;
emacs23=$sysdefaultemacs;
emacs24=/usr/local/bin/emacs-24.4-lucid;
emacs25=/usr/local/bin/emacs-25.2-lucid;
emacs26=/usr/local/bin/emacs-26;
emacstesting=$emacs26;
case $emacsconfig in
spacemacs|deepin-emacs|clemacs|doom-emacs|prelude-emacs|emacsstarterkit)
emacsbin=${emacs25};
;;
exwm)
emacsbin=${emacs24};
;;
emacs-testing|emacs-unstable)
emacsbin=${emacstesting};
;;
*)
HOME=$userhome;
;; # use emacsbin as defined in the settings
esac
export HOME;
unset userhome;
cd "$HOME";
if test -e "$emacsbin"; then
$emacsbin "$@"
else
echo >&2 "$self: ERROR –– not found: $emacsbin";
exit 1
fi
I would recommend using docker to setup multiple versions. This would mean you need docker installed. Docker is used to build containers, which are light-weight isolated virtual environment running on your machine.
Containers have complete isolation from your current machine therefore allowing you to set up isolated environments for each version of emacs. If you are familiar with python virtual environment, it is the same but more generic and may require more technical understanding. It may be worth the investment to learn docker.
Here is the link to dockerfile use to build images... https://github.com/Silex/docker-emacs
Good luck!
