Starting Your Emacs Adventure


Install Emacs

# apt-get install emacs25

Set up package repositories 📦

Emacs has loads of great plugins and it has a package manager to install them. Add these three to your ~/.emacs:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Emacs package repositories
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
(setq package-archives '(("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/")
                         ("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
                         ("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/")))

;; Add the ELPA packages to the load path
(let ((default-directory "~/.emacs.d/elpa"))
  (normal-top-level-add-subdirs-to-load-path))

Be sure to create ~/.emacs.d:

$ mkdir ~/.emacs.d

Start Emacs

$ emacs &

It's all about shortcuts ⌨

There are loads of shortcuts in Emacs. You need to know that C means Ctrl and M means Alt.

M-x thus means "press Alt and x at the same time".

C-x C-s means "press Ctrl and x at the same time, then press Ctrl and s at the same time".

Browse the available packages

M-x list-packages

Get a head start by following the built-in tutorial

C-h t

Licensed under CC BY Creative Commons License ~ ✉ torstein.k.johansen @ gmail ~ 🐘 @skybert@emacs.ch ~ 🐦 @torsteinkrause