Re: Compiling emacs 22 on ubuntu 7.0.4

[David Kastrup]

Glenn Morris <address@hidden> writes:

> Richard Stallman wrote:
>
>> Please don't do that. Emacs implements the same features with or
>> without X toolkits. The absence of an X toolkit is not an anomaly,
>> and should not be treated as one.
>
> I can sort of follow your logic, but it would not be mine. I don't see
> the absence of jpeg support (for example) as being any kind of anomaly
> either. It's a "neat feature that many people like to have and might
> get confused about when it's not available, so they should get extra
> warning about its absence". Same for an X toolkit IMO.

There have been quite enough people in the Emacs help lists who have
complained that their Emacs only runs in text mode.  It is pretty much
the most common problem for people compiling from source, and a
problem which they don't recognize.

We could probably use some heuristics: if DISPLAY is set, and/or if
X11 runtime libraries appear available and/or an executable named X
(the last probably being most reliable and easy to check), then we'll
barf unless the user explicitly says -without-X11.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum