UbuntuHandbook

While Ubuntu 17.04 includes the latest GNU Emacs 25.1 in its main repository, here’s how to install the editor in Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 12.04 via PPA.

Emacs 25.1 was released months ago with a wide variety of new features. I’ve written about how to build it from the source. However, a PPA repository will make things easier.

Kevin Kelley has created a PPA with Emacs 25 packages for all current Ubuntu releases. A patch was made into the packages to fix for an `xinput`-related bug that, when triggered, causes `emacs` to enter an infinite loop; the process will then be unresponsive and will consume 100% of a single CPU core until you kill it.

1. Open terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T or searching for “Terminal” from start menu. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kelleyk/emacs

Type in your password (no visual feedback due to security reason) when prompts and hit Enter.

2. Then update and install Emacs 25 via commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install emacs25

For text-only interface, replace emacs25 with emacs25-nox in the last command.

Don’t know why, but I need to log out and back in to be able to launch Emacs 25 from the Dash.

How to Remove:

To remove Emacs25, open terminal and run commands:

sudo apt remove emacs25 emacs25-nox && sudo apt autoremove

The PPA can be removed by going to System Settings -> Software & Updates -> Other Software tab.

GNU Emacs text editor finally reached the 25.1 release last night. Here’s how you can install it in Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 16.10.

Emacs 25.1 release highlights:

Emacs can now load shared/dynamic libraries (modules)
Experimental support for Cairo drawing
Enhanced network security (TLS/SSL certificate validity and the like)
New minor mode ‘electric-quote-mode’ for using curved quotes as you type
Character folding support in isearch.el
Xwidgets: a new feature for embedding native widgets inside Emacs buffers
New and improved facilities for inserting Unicode characters

How to install Emacs 25.1 in Ubuntu 16.04:

Besides installing the latest snapshot via the daily build PPA, it’s easy to build the 25.1 stable release by following the steps below one by one:

Remove previous Emacs if any before getting started:

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install build tools:

sudo apt install build-essential checkinstall

Type in your password (no visual feedback) when it asks and hit Enter.

2. Then install the build dependencies via command:

sudo apt-get build-dep emacs24

1. Emacs 24 and 25 use the same build dependencies.

2. For those who have upgraded Intel driver using Intel Graphics Update Tool for Linux, like me, you won’t be able to install these dependencies. You need to downgrade the intel graphcs driver first.

3. Now download the source at ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/, then extract:

4. Open terminal and navigate to the “emacs-25.1” folder via command (or select “Open in terminal” from its context menu):

cd ~/Downloads/emacs-25.1

5. In the same terminal window, once you’re in the source folder, run the commands below one by one:

./configure

make

For the default GTK version in Ubuntu 16.04, there’s a known bug for multiple displays.

6. Finally use checkinstall command to create .deb and install Emacs 25.1:

sudo checkinstall

While running the command, answer on screen questions, e.g., install docs, type package description, change package name, version, etc.

Once done, Emacs 25.1 is installed on your system and you can remove it anytime by running the command in the prompt with sudo privilege:

In my case it’s:

sudo dpkg -r emacs-25

And the last command create a .deb package in the source folder, and it can be used in another Ubuntu machine to install Emacs 25.1 (need to manually install dependencies via step 2).

Finally, run command emacs to launch the text editor, or launch it from Unity Dash (App Launcher) at next login (or next boot).