Re: apropos-documentation fails all the time

[Tim X]

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null> writes:
>
>> "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:
>>
>>>> I am using emacs 23.2.1 from Debian testing.  apropos-do-all 
>>>> is t.  The error occurs regardless of what I pass to
>>>> apropos-documentation, interactively typically; e.g.
>>>>    C-h d .*documentation.* RET
>>>> gives the error as does any string really, whether a regex or not.
>>>> I will report a bug if nobody can suggest anything that can alleviate
>>>> this problem.
>>>
>>> Yes, please report a bug. I assume you started from emacs -Q.
>>>
>>> With emacs 23.2.1 I cannot reproduce it:
>>> GNU Emacs 23.2.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2010-05-08 on G41R2F1
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I cannot reproduce it either using emacs 24.0.50. Note that Drew's
>> comment regarding running with -Q and seeing if the problem exists is
>> critical. This will tell you if it is a bug in the core emacs program or
>> from something in your .emacs or an additional package that has been
>> installed
>>
>> Tim
>
> Just to give an update on this problem:
>
>
> - with emacs -Q, I can load up my initialisation files (.emacs and all
>   the bits it refers to) and there are no problems: C-h d works just
>   fine.
>
> - with emacs -q, the error reappears.
>
>
> If I set apropos-do-all to nil, everything works fine (although I
> obviously lose the functionality provided by this setting).  There is
> something in my site wide initialisation that is conflicting with
> apropos-do-all obviously.  Unfortunately, I have way too many packages
> (all from Debian repositories, mind you) to even begin figuring out
> where to look.
>
> Any further suggestions are more than welcome but, at least, for the
> time being I can put up without apropos-do-all.
>
> Thanks again,
> eric

It appears emacs support under Debina/Ubuntu does not have enough people
work9ing on it to keep tings up-to-date. I've noticed an increasing
number of packages that are either behind the latest stable upstream
releases or have had significant bugs outstanding for quite some time.
Ubuntu emacs support seems particularly lacking (they are still shipping
23.1 as the latest version). 

My recommendation is to ensure you only have those emacs add-on packages
installed that you actually use. It is very easy to end up with a whole
heap of pacakges you don't need and don't use that only add problems,
especially if they are behind upstream stable versions. 

I would also seriously consider just managing things yourself. Most
people only use a handful of add-on packages and once you get a workflow
setup, it is very easy to manage them. Life is likely to become even
easier since emacs 24 will include support for the emacs package
archive and you wil be able to install many packages from within emacs
via a simple command. 

Tim


 


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au