On Mon, 22 Jan 2018, Nishan Singh Mann wrote:
Hello, on Ubuntu 17.10 which to my knowledge is based on Debian unstable, installing Emacs via $sudo apt install emacs and then trying to view the Emacs manual using C-h r fails with error "Info file emacs does not exist" The same set of instructions on Ubuntu 16.04 works and one ends up with a local copy of the GNU emacs manual. Did the documentation get delegated to another package or am I missing something? Thanks, Nishan
A little web-searching shows that someone with usernames not dissimilar to yours has recently asked this question in other fora, and received terse answers similar to the ones posted here thus far.[1] Below is an attempted ELI5 (explain-like-I'm-5-years-old answer). Caveat 1: This is the debian-user list. You say you are using Ubuntu, not debian, so you really would have done better to pursue this question on an Ubuntu forum/list. It has been many years since I ran Ubuntu, and make no claims to know best ubuntu-practice. Caveat 2: You don't mention what emacs version you are using. I will assume you are using emacs24. First I will describe what I do, as a debian user, to install emacs documentation. This will answer the question implicit in your subject line, which is not identical to the question you pose in your message body. Then I will discuss what little I know (or believe I know) about translating that workflow to ubuntu. IN DEBIAN In /etc/apt/sources.list, I have an entry that normally looks like this, deb http://debian.univ-lorraine.fr/debian/ stretch main with * a TYPE (deb) * a URI (http://...) * a SUITE (stretch) * and one or more COMPONENTS (main) When I want to install the emacs documentation, I just append "non-free" to the components on that line, changing the line above to… deb http://debian.univ-lorraine.fr/debian/ stretch main non-free …and then I run # apt-get update so that my local package lists are updated to include the non-free packages on offer from the repository referenced by that line in sources.list. Then I install the emacs documentation with # apt-get install emacs24-common-non-dfsg (or whatever package contains the docs for my emacs version). After installing the full emacs documentation, I usually edit my sources.list once again, to remove the "non-free" component, since installing emacs documentation is the only time I require non-free packages. FOR UBUNTU As I recall, Ubuntu names its components somewhat differently; I don't believe it has a component named "non-free". So some translation is required to apply the workflow above to an Ubuntu system. It is my understanding that the Ubuntu's emacs24-common-non-dfsg package is in the "universe" component. So I expect that substituting "universe" for "non-free" in the workflow above, would do what you want. I hope this helps. Good luck. NOTES 1. For example: https://askubuntu.com/questions/998527/emacs-info-manual-missing-in-ubuntu-17-10
