Re: Define list of packages in ~/.emacs.d/init.el

[Dan Čermák]

Hi Stephan,

I am doing exactly what you are describing using this snippet:

;;
;; Auto-install not yet installed packages
;;

(require 'cl)

(defvar required-packages
  '(auctex
    yasnippet)
  "a list of packages to ensure are installed at launch.")

; method to check if all packages are installed
(defun packages-installed-p ()
  (loop for p in required-packages
        when (not (package-installed-p p)) do (return nil)
        finally (return t)))

; if not all packages are installed, check one by one and install the missing 
ones.
(unless (packages-installed-p)
  ; check for new packages (package versions)
  (message "%s" "Emacs is now refreshing its package database...")
  (package-refresh-contents)
  (message "%s" " done.")
  ; install the missing packages
  (dolist (p required-packages)
    (when (not (package-installed-p p))
      (package-install p))))



I have basically copy-pasted this from elisp snippets that I found
around the web, so please don't ask me hard questions ;-)
If you want to auto-install packages, add them to the required-packages
list and voila, you are done.

I have used it in this form in Emacs 24. As Emacs 25 automatically
stores a list of installed packages in the variable
package-selected-packages, you can also use that list instead of the
custom required-packages once you upgrade to Emacs > 24.


Cheers,

Dan

Stephan Brauer <stephan@ls42.de> writes:

> Hi,
>
> disclaimer: I'm (obviously) new to emacs.
>
> I've been searching for a way to define a list of packages that I wan't 
> to have installed and then have them installed or updated whenever emacs 
> is started. I think this way I can easily put my init.el into version 
> control and on every system I use for emacs just deploy that file and 
> emacs does the rest.
>
> Does someone here know about a way to do that?
>
> I'm using `GNU Emacs 24.5.1`.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Stephan