Re: installing or compiling GNU emacs on Mac Catalina (fink for the moment)

[Tim Cross]

Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

> Hi
>
> I am not sure I will switch to a Mac, but I can use one for the moment
> running Catalina (10.15). I know there are several options to obtain a
> running GNU emacs of sorts.
>
>     1. Aquamacs (but this is based on GNU 25 and I am not sure what else
>        it uses).
>
>     2. https://emacsformacosx.com/ (haven't tried it out) it is 27.1-1
>        which is pretty good.
>
>     3. Try the one shipped with fink (that fails at the moment),
>        macports (next candidate) or homebrew (I am sceptical about that
>        one since it does not rely on sudo)
>
>     4. Compile the latest master. This I want to do besides having an
>        official GNU emacs.
>
>
> Lars does this regularly on MacPorts and it seems to work, so it tried
> to follow him but on fink
>
> But configure fails
>
> I tried
> ./configure --prefix=/opt/emacs28 --with-x-toolkit=athena --without-pop 
> --with-mailutils
>
> Not sure about athena on fink, but it fails even before that.
>
>
> configure: error: The following required libraries were not found:
>      gnutls
> Maybe some development libraries/packages are missing?
> To build anyway, give:
>      --with-gnutls=ifavailable
> as options to configure.
> oub@Uwes-MacBook-Air emacs % fink install gnutls
> Password:
> Information about 11044 packages read in 5 seconds.
> Failed: no package found for specification 'gnutls'!
>
>

I think the easiest approach is to use homebrew. You have at least 3
options with homebrew. There is the basic emacs recipe, which will build
27.1 by default, there is a pre-built 'cask' version which will just
install it and then there are additional casks, like the rallycat/emacs
cask which will install a pre-built macport version of 27.1 (which is
what I use and find it really successful).

If you go with the vanilla emacs homebrew recipe, you can add a command
line option to have it build from the current repo HEAD. This is not a
bad option if you want to run latest bleeding edge. I don't tend to do
that because I prefer the stability of a released version when on the
mac.

Nice thing about homebrew is that it can install all the dependencies
you need to build on the mac, like gnutls and libraries for svg etc.

If your going to build from sources directly via a pull from the repo, I
don't think you want the x-toolkit stuff. The mac doesn't include an X
server anymore (you have to install XQuartz if you want an X server).
Probably what you need is the ns libraries.

Personally, I would go with homebrew and the emacs recipe or the
rallycat cask and the macports Emacs it installs (Emacs 27.1).

--
Tim Cross