Re: emacs

[Alan Mackenzie]

[Followup-To: gnu.emacs.help]

Ricci, Bob <BRicci@oakwoodhomes.com> wrote on Thu, 13 Dec 2001 08:19:18 -0500:

> I have installed emacs on a UNIX box using the cd that came with the
> software. It appears to be installed but I can't run it. It gives me an
> error about terminal definition and then core dumps.

> Please help

Bob, for a start, gnu.emacs.help would be a more appropriate group -
gnu.emacs.bug is more for definite bugs in emacs rather than the icky
little start-up problems which bug everybody at first.

Next time you post, specify exactly what Unix version you're using, what
version of Emacs (Yeah, I know, it's difficult to find when you can't
even start the program), and EXACTLY what the error message says.  At a
wild guess, your terminal isn't properly defined in "termcap" or
"terminfo" (or whatever; I know next to nothing about these beasts), and
thus Emacs doesn't know how to display itself on your terminal.

But, as a quick hint, it may be easier to abandon your pre-packaged emacs
(which is almost certainly an old version) and download the tarball of
version 21.1 (which has added features, bugs repaired, (and no doubt some
new bugs too - you can't have everthing :-)).  The tarball is of the
order of 20Mb big, and can be found somewhere on <http://www.gnu.org/>.
It's easy to build (even I managed it first time).

Best of luck!

> Bob Ricci

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").