I asked this question several years ago (https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin-apps/2018-October/039451.html), but I'm repeating it, in a more specific form, in the hope that setup has progressed to the point where I get a different answer.

There are currently five emacs packages: emacs-common, emacs, emacs-X11, emacs-w32, and emacs-lucid. The first includes things that are needed by each of the other four, and those four each include an emacs binary. The binary in the emacs package is /usr/bin/emacs-nox.exe. The other packages contain /usr/bin/emacs-X11.exe, and so on.

This way of naming the packages doesn't really reflect the contents of the emacs package. It also means that anyone who installs emacs gets emacs-nox.exe, even if they plan to use one of the other three binaries.

I would rather rename the current emacs-common package to emacs and the current emacs package to emacs-nox. But then the new emacs would have to have a way of requiring the installation of at least one of emacs-nox, emacs-X11, emacs-w32, or emacs-lucid. Is there any way to do this with our current setup machinery?

My idea three years ago was to have the new emacs package require a "feature" called, for instance, emacs-bin, and then have each of emacs-nox, emacs-X11, emacs-w32, emacs-lucid "provide" that feature. This is what Fedora does. Achim didn't think this was feasible without major changes in setup. Is that still the case? If so, can anyone think of another way to accomplish what I want?

Thanks.

Ken

Reply via email to