4

I have this line in the early-init.el file:

(setq package-enable-at-startup nil)

and these lines in the init.el file:

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))
(setq package-archive-priorities '(("melpa"  . 100)
                                   ("gnu"    .  50)
                                   ("nongnu" .  25)))
(package-initialize)

(unless (package-installed-p 'use-package)
  (package-refresh-contents)
  (package-install 'use-package))

(use-package use-package
  :init
  (setq use-package-always-ensure t)
  (use-package use-package-ensure-system-package
    :ensure t))

I'm not sure if I understood correctly because I'm not a native English speaker but from what I read online it seemed to me that the (package-initialize) is not needed anymore in the init file since Emacs 27. However I'm not sure about it. Is that true?

I'm using Emacs 28.1. So, in my case should l get rid of the (package-initialize) line and set the package-enable-at-startup variable to t in early-init.el instead of nil? I'm not planning to use anything lower than Emacs 28 in the future.

Drew
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Zoli
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  • A lot of what you read online may be out of date (check the date when it was written/updated): in many cases, things change in Emacs but the blogs are almost never updated to reflect such changes. You have to find trustworthy sources. For me, I trust the various manuals that are distributed with my Emacs and if I still have questions, I design and perform small experiments to try to figure out the answer(s). In some cases, I read the sources in order to figure out some things, but that can be time consuming. And even so, there may be errors in the manuals as well: "trust but verify" :-) – NickD Mar 13 '23 at 15:49

1 Answers1

4

It depends on what exactly you want to do. If what you want is to activate all your installed packages when Emacs starts up, then you have to do NOTHING: do not set package-enable-at-startup anywhere and do not call package-initialize anywhere (you still want to specify packages sources in package-archives of course, if you want more than the default gnu archive).

The Emacs manual section on packaging says:

   Installed packages are automatically made available by Emacs in all
subsequent sessions.  This happens at startup, before processing the
init file but after processing the early init file (*note Early Init
File::).  As an exception, Emacs does not make packages available at
startup if invoked with the ‘-q’ or ‘--no-init-file’ options (*note
Initial Options::).

   To keep Emacs from automatically making packages available at
startup, change the variable ‘package-enable-at-startup’ to ‘nil’.  You
must do this in the early init file, as the variable is read before
loading the regular init file.  Currently this variable cannot be set
via Customize.

package-enable-at-startup is set to t by default. You only have to worry about it if you don't want to activate your installed packages on startup (perhaps because you are debugging a problem in the packaging system - but that is a very special situation).

I also checked in Emacs 28.2 and the above should be valid in that as well. I don't have an Emacs 28.1 handy however, so I didn't check on that.

NickD
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  • Thank you. I tried looking up the documentation but couldn't find anything. Now it makes sense. I think however that `(require 'package)` is still needed in the init.el. I don't think it is loaded by default. – Zoli Mar 13 '23 at 14:57
  • AFAICT, it is loaded by default: `(featurep 'package)` returns `t` even in `emaqcs -q` where package activation is inhibited. – NickD Mar 13 '23 at 15:31
  • For documentation, you should learn how to use `Info`: in this case, say `C-h i g(emacs)packages`: that takes you to the relevant chapter of the Emacs manual. – NickD Mar 13 '23 at 15:37
  • Thank you. Interestingly things seem to work even if I remove `(require 'package)`. Hmm.. That is strange. – Zoli Mar 13 '23 at 15:51
  • I was wrong in my comment above that it is loaded by default: it is actually autoloaded, but the effect is pretty much the same. – NickD Mar 13 '23 at 19:31
  • Just an update. Today I installed the Windows version of Emacs 28.2. I tried both the binary and zipped packages. I spent several hours debugging a `package-archives variable is void error` and the culprit was the absence of `(require 'package)`. So, the `(require 'package)` line is required in Windows. The `package-enable-at-startup` is set to true in Windows as well by default but in Windows things don't seem to work without the additional require 'package. – Zoli Mar 14 '23 at 20:46