Updating packages in Emacs
Solution 1
-
In order to automatically update the list of packages, only if there is no package list already, use the following:
(when (not package-archive-contents) (package-refresh-contents))
In order to update all installed packages, type
package-list-packages
, which will take you to the*Packages*
buffer (and also update the list of packages), and then type U x.package-refresh-contents
unconditionally tries to download a package list from all repos you've added topackage-archives
;package-archive-contents
is non nil if you have already downloaded the package list. -
ELPA is the original. I don't think it's really maintained anymore, but I'm not sure. I don't use it.
GNU is "official". It's maintained along with Emacs, which means things should always work but updates and new packages don't come very often.
Marmalade is basically a website where you can upload a complete package, and it will be added to the marmalade repo. You don't just submit a link to the package's upstream, and it doesn't quite automate the creation of the package completely. I think this is the Right Thing, because you don't necessarily want to track upstream. Unfortunately, it has been unmaintained for a while, but someone recently took it over so it should be back and better at some point.
Melpa takes a URL to e.g. the EmacsWiki lisp area or a github repo, and builds a package automatically from it. Thus it is usually at most a day behind whatever it is tracking. Although it tracks upstream, I've never had a problem in practice, and this is where most of my packages are from. There is also Melpa Stable, which is like Melpa but grabs tagged revisions of the upstream repo instead of the latest revision. Melpa stable has fewer packages than Melpa.
Org mode has its own
package.el
repo (http://orgmode.org/elpa/).All of the package repos work the same, you just add them to your
package-archives
.Here's a more in-depth blog post about this subject, which I mostly agree with.
-
I'm not sure, but I think if a package is duplicated in different repos, the order the repos appear in in
package-archives
determines precedence. I don't know if higher precedence is at the beginning or end of the list.Update: In Emacs 25, there is a variable
package-archive-priorities
that you can use to prioritize your package repos (e.g. prefer ELPA over MELPA).
Here is the relevant section of my init.el
, if you're interested:
(setq jpk-packages
'(
ac-dabbrev
...
yasnippet
))
(package-initialize)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/"))
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("org" . "http://orgmode.org/elpa/"))
;; install any packages in jpk-packages, if they are not installed already
(let ((refreshed nil))
(when (not package-archive-contents)
(package-refresh-contents)
(setq refreshed t))
(dolist (pkg jpk-packages)
(when (and (not (package-installed-p pkg))
(assoc pkg package-archive-contents))
(unless refreshed
(package-refresh-contents)
(setq refreshed t))
(package-install pkg))))
(defun package-list-unaccounted-packages ()
"Like `package-list-packages', but shows only the packages that
are installed and are not in `jpk-packages'. Useful for
cleaning out unwanted packages."
(interactive)
(package-show-package-list
(remove-if-not (lambda (x) (and (not (memq x jpk-packages))
(not (package-built-in-p x))
(package-installed-p x)))
(mapcar 'car package-archive-contents))))
Solution 2
Within Emacs, use M-x list-packages
to list all packages which will automatically refresh the archive contents. Afterwards use U
to mark all upgradable packages to be upgraded, and x
to actually perform the new updates. Emacs will then fetch and install all upgrades, and ask you to whether to remove the old, obsolete versions afterwards.
You may also want to take a look at Carton which provides a more convenient way to manage your packages by declaring them in a dedicated file, and includes a convenient command line client to automatically install and upgrade packages declared in this way.
The order of package-archives
does not matter. Emacs aggregates the contents of all archives into a single coherent list of available packages and their versions, stored in package-archive-contents
.
Upon package-install
, Emacs will simply pick the newest version of a package, regardless of the originating archive. For more control about package origin, MELPA provides the melpa package which allows to black- or whitelist packages from specified archives.
Solution 3
In terminal:
emacs
M-x list-packages
this puts you in the *packages* buffer
shift-u x
emacs will ask you (y/n), wait for updates
C-x k <ret>
this will kill the *packages* buffer and return you back to *scratch*
C-x-C-c
this will exit emacs, and let you relaunch via, but you might have to debug :(
emacs
my 2¢
Solution 4
This is more of an extended comment on jpkotta's answer.
This is an adjustment I am experimenting with for jpkotta's answer above:
(setq n 0) ; set n as 0
(dolist (pkg pkgs-2b-present) ; for each pkg in list
(unless (or ; unless
(package-installed-p pkg) ; pkg is installed or
(assoc pkg ; pkg is in the archive list
package-archive-contents))
(setq n (+ n 1)))) ; add one to n
(when (> n 0) ; if n > 0,
(package-refresh-contents)) ; refresh packages
(replacing (when (not package-archive-contents) (package-refresh-contents))
).
The package-list was not refreshing sufficiently often enough for my use-case.
I haven't considered if there is a more efficient solution to my problem; first, I've to see if the problem goes away with this adjustment.
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Updated on July 08, 2022Comments
-
Amelio Vazquez-Reina almost 2 years
I have the following setup for packages (not sure if there is a better recommended one):
(require 'package) (setq package-archives '(("ELPA" . "http://tromey.com/elpa/") ("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") ("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/"))) ; Apparently needed for the package auto-complete (why?) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/") t) (package-initialize) (setq url-http-attempt-keepalives nil)
I have three questions related to the installation and updating of packages.
Q1. Is there a way to update the list of available packages (and most recent versions) and update a specific package?
Q.2 What is the difference between the following package sources?:
- ELPA,
- GNU
- marmalade
- melpa
Q.3 Does it matter the order in which they are added to
package-archives
?-
aartist over 11 yearsDo you use the M-x package-list-packages ? It shows all the available packages and their most recent version. You can also install from this interface.
-
lunaryorn over 11 yearsMELPA is needed for auto-complete since obviously none bothered to make auto-complete available on Marmalade. Do not bother, but rather clean up your
package-archives
. Get rid of the ELPA archive, which is not maintained anymore, and of the marmalade archive, which is a mess of out-dated and duplicated packages without clear guidance and maintenance. Use only the standard GNU archive, and MELPA> -
Amelio Vazquez-Reina over 11 yearsThanks @lunaryorn! That's very helpful. Do you know how I could stay informed on things like this? (i.e. "good-things-to-know" like these as Emacs evolves)
-
lunaryorn over 11 yearsInformation is freely flowing around in the web, just catch it: Follow /emacs on Reddit, follow blogs and twitter of renowned Emacs people like Nic Ferrier, Bozhidar Batsov, Magnar Sveen, John Wiegley, etc., join #emacs on Freenode IRC, and many more.
-
phils over 10 yearsYou should
(setq package-enable-at-startup nil)
if you're going to call(package-initialize)
yourself. -
Amelio Vazquez-Reina over 10 yearsThanks @phils - Why is that needed?
-
phils over 10 yearsuser815423426: See stackoverflow.com/a/18783152/324105
-
Amelio Vazquez-Reina over 11 yearsThanks! What does
when (not package-archive-contents)
check ? -
jpkotta over 11 yearsThe conditional prevents refreshing every time I start emacs (I usually only want it to check when I tell it to). It only checks if there are no package archives, which should only be the case the first time I clone my config to a new machine.
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Amelio Vazquez-Reina over 10 yearsJust letting you know of @Brandy Trainor's answer, which seems to complement your answer - in case it is helpful.
-
jpkotta over 10 yearsIn my answer,
package-archive-contents
is refreshed only if it doesn't exist. The idea is that you copy your .emacs.d to a new machine and it automatically installs all of your packages, but after that you have to update manually. I try to update about once every two weeks. I'm guessing you added a package to your list, but yourpackage-archive-contents
was too old to have it? -
Brady Trainor over 10 years@jpkotta, I have a dual boot, each using their default
~/.emacs.d/elpa/
for location of packages. However, my version of your package-installing-code is in a "third" partition, (e:/emacs-config
or/e/emacs-config/
). So I add a package to the list while in one OS, and it should update when I loadEmacs
in the other OS. For sure there is some element of overkill in my solution, but it seems to be working at least. -
Brady Trainor over 10 years@jpkotta, why my
package-archive-contents
seemed to possibly be so out of wack escapes me. That is an issue I did not narrow down. If I look for and find a "more elegant" solution in the future, I will add it to my post. -
jpkotta over 10 years
(package-refresh-contents)
writes to~/.emacs.d/elpa/archives
. It's not clear if you have that directory shared between OSes. I'd recommend against sharing theelpa/
directories, because Emacs bytecode (code inelpa/
is bytecompiled) is not backwards compatible (gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/…). You'd have to ensure that both installations have the same version of Emacs. I keep my.emacs.d
in version control, and synchronize different installations with that. -
Lenar Hoyt over 8 yearsThat's
S-u
to be more precise. -
lunaryorn over 8 years@mcb What's
S-u
? The package menu doesn't use that binding. -
Lenar Hoyt over 8 yearsI mean
Shift-u
by that. -
lunaryorn over 8 years@mcb Well, that's why I wrote a capital U 😊
-
Lenar Hoyt over 8 yearsIt's just for the confused ones like me that think this means <kbd>U</kbd>.
-
Vladimir Panteleev over 8 yearsI think this needs to call
(refresh-package-contents)
unconditionally before downloading new packages, as otherwise Emacs may try downloading an old package version (which is by then a 404), fail, and stop loading. -
MrColes about 6 yearsI got “no command specified” or something like that when I typed “U”. After running
M-x package-refresh-contents
, it prompted me to type “U” to mark all for update, and then I was able to type “x” to run the updates. -
ecarlin about 4 yearsFWIW, S- means "super key" gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/…
-
alper about 4 yearsWhat is the best way to understand which package is unwanted? @jpkotta
-
jpkotta about 4 years@alper What do you mean by unwanted? Packages only get installed if you install them, or they're dependencies of some other package you install.
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alper over 2 yearsCan this be done using a bash script?
-
alper about 2 yearsCould this done automatically when emacs daemon starts?
-
alper about 2 years@jpkotta Sorry I meant unnessesary packages. Also can
package-list-packages
followed byU x
run automatically each time emacs daemon starts? -
jpkotta about 2 years@alper
U
runspackage-menu-mark-upgrades
andx
runspackage-menu-execute
. You should be able to run those automatically (you'll have to make sure you're in the*Packages*
buffer probably withwith-current-buffer
or similar). I wouldn't recommend it though, upgrades can break things, I'd rather set aside some time to do it deliberately to make sure the upgrade worked.