How To Install emacs on Debian 9

In this tutorial we learn how to install emacs on Debian 9. emacs is GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install emacs on Debian 9.

What is emacs

emacs is:

GNU Emacs is the extensible self-documenting text editor. This is a metapackage that will always depend on the latest recommended Emacs release.

There are three methods to install emacs on Debian 9. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install emacs Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install emacs using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install emacs

Install emacs Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install emacs using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install emacs

Install emacs Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install emacs using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install emacs

How To Uninstall emacs on Debian 9

To uninstall only the emacs package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove emacs

Uninstall emacs And Its Dependencies

To uninstall emacs and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 9, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove emacs

Remove emacs Configurations and Data

To remove emacs configuration and data from Debian 9 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge emacs

Remove emacs configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove emacs configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge emacs

Dependencies

emacs have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install emacs package on Debian 9 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.