Re: Dealing with a system Emacs properly

[Joel Reicher]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Joel Reicher <joel.reicher@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > > I recently upgraded Linux on my Chromebook to Debian 12.5 
> > > (bookworm), This included upgrading Emacs from 27.1 to 28.2 in 
> > > the installation of Debian.  I have been installing packages 
> > > for Emacs from (M)Elpa into my ~/.emacs.d/elpa directory. 
> > > Recently, I noticed that Org was at v9.5.5 whereas the latest 
> > > one was 9.7.6 in list-packages.
> >
> > Are you saying a "personal" installation of Org was 
> > discarded/downgraded/ignored when you upgraded Emacs, or are 
> > you saying that an upgrade using, say, "package-upgrade-all" 
> > did not upgrade Org?
>
> I have the package auto-package-update which regularly checks my 
> packages for updates on [M]Elpa.

I don't use that anymore, but I can see it draws on both 
package-alist and package--builtins so I'd expect it to work for 
upgrading builtins also. Can you check the values of those 
variables if the issue is still happening or happens again?

> I had package-install(ed) Org ~v8.0 and this package had been 
> regularly updating it.  Along the way, I found my local Org had 
> a conflict with the system installed Org and I think I removed 
> the system Org (in Emacs 27.1) to get around that.  When I 
> upgraded Debian to get Emacs 28.2, I think something similar 
> happened.  I didn't notice until I saw a few "org-*.signed" 
> files in my elpa dir with no corresponding dir suggesting that 
> auto-package-update had tried and failed to update Org, but, if 
> there were warnings/errors, I ignored them among other package 
> updates because it was usually ok to do that. Perhaps package

I think it should have been possible to do whatever needed doing 
without removing or altering files from the "system paths", but 
it's hard for me to guess what might have happened.

> > The latter is normal behaviour for builtin packages...
>
> Latter?  I don't see package-upgrade-all in describe-function.

Possibly it's not in the version you have?

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Package-Installation.html#index-package_002dupgrade

> > > Is there a recommended method of installing Elpa packages 
> > > (like Org) into my home directory such that they properly 
> > > override the Debian system package? Am I supposed to remove by 
> > > hand the system package?
> >
> > No, that should not be necessary. A vanilla package install 
> > should shadow a builtin.
>
> Okay, by shadow you mean cover.  Most of the time, that's true. 
> Once in awhile, there's some problem.

Could you provide specifics? I believe redefinition and overriding 
(of anything!) should always be possible in Emacs.

Regards,

       - Joel