[Mac-emacs-users] what are different Emacs varieties for OS X?

[Mitchell L M. <ml...@ac...>]

Could someone please summarize what versions of Emacs currently exist 
for OS X, along with build choices, in particular whether running on 
Aqua or X11 if both are possible -- or point to a web site that does 
that?

I've been sort of following this mailing list, but find myself still 
stuck in 20.7 running in Terminal because I don't understand what I'm 
really supposed to be using, though I've played with just about 
everyone I ever saw a reference to.  I'm just interested in GNU 
Emacs, not XEmacs or anything weirder.  I want to run under Aqua 
usually, X sometimes.  I want the most current version.  I use fink, 
Fink Commander, XDarwin, and sometimes OroborosX.  I want fonts, 
mouse clicks, menus, etc. that I can't have in the terminal.

Just for kicks, I just downloaded Emacs from the Savannah repository 
for the first time:

	cvs -d:pserver:an...@su...:/cvsroot/emacs login
	cvs -z3 -d:pserver:an...@su...:/cvsroot/emacs co emacs

I cd'd to emacs, and did ./configure.  It seemed to decide it should 
build for X11:

	Configured for `powerpc-apple-darwin5.5'.

	  Where should the build process find the source code? 
/usr/local/src/emacs
	  What operating system and machine description files should Emacs use?
  	       `s/darwin.h' and `m/powermac.h'
	  What compiler should emacs be built with?               cc  -g -O2
	  Should Emacs use the GNU version of malloc?             no
	    (The GNU allocators don't work with this system configuration.)
	  Should Emacs use a relocating allocator for buffers?    no
	  Should Emacs use mmap(2) for buffer allocation?         no
  	 What window system should Emacs use?                    x11
  	 What toolkit should Emacs use?                          LUCID
  	 Should Emacs use a shared game state directory? 
${localstatedir}/games/emacs
  	 Where do we find X Windows header files? 
/usr/X11R6/include
  	 Where do we find X Windows libraries?                   /usr/X11R6/lib
  	 Does Emacs use -lXaw3d?                                 yes
  	 Does Emacs use -lXpm?                                   yes
  	 Does Emacs use -ljpeg?                                  yes
   	Does Emacs use -ltiff?                                  yes
  	 Does Emacs use -lungif?                                 no
  	 Does Emacs use -lpng?                                   yes
  	 Does Emacs use X toolkit scroll bars?                   yes

Then, following the instructions, I did "make".  It complained:

	Essential Lisp files seem to be missing.  You should either
	do `make bootstrap' or create `lisp/abbrev.elc' somehow.

So I did "make bootstrap", and it quickly broke compiling dispnew.c. 
[I was not running X11 at the time, and possibly my paths were not 
set correctly for X11 as a result, but I didn't look into this at 
all.]

I'm actually a very experienced developer, on both MacOS and Unix and 
in many languages.  I'm sure if I spent the time I could figure out 
what's going on.  I'm giving this example mainly to show that it 
isn't so easy for someone to get themselves an Emacs that works in 
Aqua or X11, as opposed to just the terminal.  And I don't want to 
spend the time when others have done such good work already getting 
Emacs onto OS X.

-- 

     --- Mitchell L Model