Re: What exactly does "installing a package" mean?

[Emanuel Berg]

Joost Kremers <joost.m.kremers@gmail.com> writes:

> Well, that's a bit of a naive statement. Of course
> it's all files and directories, the question is,
> *which* files and directories. If Emacs were to keep
> a list of installed packages and would save this
> list to, say, `~/.emacs.d`, then it would still be
> "all files and directories", but as an Emacs user,
> you might still run into trouble if you delete
> a package from `package-user-dir` but do not update
> the file containing the list of installed packages.
>
> For example, if you remove the files of a package
> xyz on a Debian(-based) system, dpkg will still
> think xyz installed, because its own database still
> says it is.

In general, there are many reasons to use a package
manager, notably reduced complexity and convenience
(those two are perhaps the same thing).

In general, there are a couple of reasons *not* to use
a package manager, notably (eventually) better
understanding and control (those two are perhaps the
same thing).

Talking specifically, on a Debian system or fork, I'd
strongly advice against not using apt-get or aptitude,
because that works so well and the strength of Debian
is (except for its Unix architecture which it shares
with all Linux distros) - the strength of Debian is
the immense and well-maintained software repositories,
exactly those which you browse and extract software
from with aptitude!

Talking specifically, on an Emacs system, I mean in
Emacs, the package situation is much less complicated
than on a Debian system. There is inline documentation
instead of separate manpages and info-files. There is
a userspace directory instead of the plethora of
directories holding binaries on a Unix system. Also,
Emacs relies to a much lesser degree on package
software than does a Debian system, which would be
crippled without the dear repos next door.

As, in Emacs, the packages are just a bunch of Elisp
files, while using a package manager is as well, if
you want to do stuff manually with `provide',
`require', `load-path', `batch-byte-compile' - this is
fine as well! (You can even do both.)

Mixing it up (package manager and manual edits) for
the same package/source file(s) tho is the one thing
I wouldn't recommend.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573