Subject: bug#70071: [FR] Provide official install scripts without requiring root, e.g., by making a static build possible

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 09:02:27 +0300

> From: Rudi C <[email-masked]>
> Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2024 18:01:31 +0330
> Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]
> 
> Given my lack of root access, I'm unsure about the best approach to install these libraries. Manually writing an
> installer script for every missing Emacs dependency raises concerns, as these dependencies might have
> their own dependencies, making the task complex, error-prone, and time-consuming. This approach may not
> be the most practical or efficient solution for the majority of users, and it certainly isn't the simple two-liner
> that your previous messages suggested. The complexity involved in manually resolving dependencies is
> precisely the reason I turned to package managers like Linuxbrew, Guix, and Nix in the first place.

If those libraries are for some reason not installed on the system,
and if the sysadmins cannot be asked to install them, then you will
need to build and install them yourself, yes.  What it takes is to
configure each one of them with --prefix= pointing to some directory
under your home directory, and then using the LIBS variable at
configure time to tell the Emacs build procedure to search those
directories for libraries.  IOW, this is the same "simple two-liner"
we showed in previous messages, just repeated for every library you
needto install privately.  And if the libraries aren't and cannot be
installed system-widely, what else can be done about that?

Of course, if package managers allow you to install precompiled
binaries and their prerequisites in any directory you like, by all
means use them.  The Emacs project doesn't (and cannot) maintain those
package managers, but they exist for these purposes, so using them
when they solve your problems is indeed TRT.