Installing Emacs on GNU/Linux

Check if your distribution already provides an Emacs version of interest to you.

If you are interested in daily builds or latest binaries, try building from source or try one of the following unofficial repositories based on your distribution.

Debian

Emacs 23

$ sudo apt-get install emacs

Emacs 24

See emacs-snapshot APT repo. The page contains installation instructions. High quality, highly recommended builds! After adding the repo according to the instructions linked to above, install with the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot

Ubuntu

Emacs 23

$ sudo apt-get install emacs

Emacs 24

The following PPA is no longer maintained and currently features Emacs 24.3.

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:cassou/emacs

$ sudo apt-get install emacs24 emacs24-el emacs24-common-non-dfsg

Emacs Daily

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-elisp/ppa

$ sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot emacs-snapshot-gtk emacs-snapshot-el

Gentoo

See Emacs on Gentoo page.

Arch Linux

Emacs 23

$ sudo pacman -S emacs

Emacs 24

See emacs-bzr package from AUR

Slackware

Compile and Install using emacs.SlackBuild (unofficial).

Fedora

Emacs 23

Available up to Fedora 16

$ sudo yum install emacs

Emacs 24

Available from Fedora 17+

$ sudo yum install emacs

SUsE

Emacs 23

Available in 12.1 and 12.2. Before that? not sure.

$ sudo zypper install emacs

Emacs 24

Not available till 12.2, but available from Factory repo. Add factory repo and then,

$ sudo zypper install emacs

Mandriva

No pre-built packages.