Dear Debian Emacsnauts, I am new to using Emacs on Debian, and also new to Org mode. I am grateful for the existence of all three. However, I had some trouble installing/activating a couple of of the Worg contributed packages, as I describe below. I installed Org and Emacs on Jessie today by running: # apt-get install org-mode I then created the attached .emacs file. In part, this was created by entering, in Emacs, the following command: `M-x customize-variables RET org-modules` and then ticking the "depend" and "drill" checkboxes I performed that step because it was recommended in the installation instructions for org-drill here: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-drill.html#unnumbered-2 Those instructions made that seem like the best way to install/enable org-drill and org-depend . However, when I closed and restarted Emacs, the *Messages* buffer notified me there were problems trying to load those two Worg contrib modules (i.e. drill and depend). Here is the contents of that *Messages* buffer in full: Loading 00debian-vars...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50autoconf.el (source)...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50cmake-data.el (source)...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)... Loading debian-ispell... Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-default.el (source)...done Loading debian-ispell...done Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-dicts.el (source)...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50dictionaries-common.el (source)...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50gtypist.el (source)...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50org-mode.el (source)...done Loading /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50python-docutils.el (source)...done Loading battery...done Loading time...done For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Problems while trying to load feature `org-depend' Problems while trying to load feature `org-drill' Sure enough, when I then downloaded https://bitbucket.org/eeeickythump/org-drill/raw/bc740455003b3e425424274731cca27f8e16abe9/spanish.org as per the org-drill web page, and then opened it in Emacs and attempted to execute `M-x org-drill`, Emacs reported "[No match]". Presumably this was because Emacs had failed to load org-drill.el . I thought it made sense to search my filesystem for a file called org-drill.el . Eventually, I found the following directory: $ ls -1 /usr/share/org-mode/lisp/ htmlize.el ob-eukleides.el ob-fomus.el ob-julia.el ob-mathomatic.el ob-oz.el ob-tcl.el org-annotate-file.el org-bibtex-extras.el org-bookmark.el org-bullets.el org-checklist.el org-choose.el org-collector.el org-colview-xemacs.el org-contacts.el org-contribdir.el org-depend.el org-drill.el org-elisp-symbol.el org-eval.el org-eval-light.el org-expiry.el org-favtable.el org-git-link.el org-interactive-query.el org-invoice.el org-jira.el org-learn.el org-mac-iCal.el org-mac-link.el org-mairix.el org-man.el org-mew.el org-mime.el org-mtags.el org-notify.el org-notmuch.el org-panel.el org-registry.el org-screen.el org-screenshot.el org-secretary.el org-static-mathjax.el org-sudoku.el orgtbl-sqlinsert.el org-toc.el org-track.el org-velocity.el org-vm.el org-wikinodes.el org-wl.el ox-bibtex.el ox-confluence.el ox-deck.el ox-freemind.el ox-groff.el ox-koma-letter.el ox-rss.el ox-s5.el ox-taskjuggler.el That gave me a clue: org-drill.el and org-depend.el *were* present on the computer, but Emacs wasn't finding them. A quick web search corroborated this, as per this message: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.mail.wanderlust.general.japanese/9775 >- /usr/share/doc/org-mode/README.Debian >> To enable contributed extensions to org-mode, simply add >> "/usr/share/org-mode/lisp" to your load-path, for instance in your >> .emacs with: >> >> (setq load-path (cons "/usr/share/org-mode/lisp" load-path)) >> >> -- Sebastien Delafond <seb <at> debian.org>, Thu, 1 Oct 2009 11:11:26 +0200 Sure enough, adding (setq load-path (cons "/usr/share/org-mode/lisp" load-path)) to my .emacs solved the problem. As you can tell, though, this was not a straightforward installation process for a newbie! That got me to think about how the installation process could be improved. I can think of a few possible alternatives: * Debian could package org-mode such that those extensions are automatically added to the Emacs load-path. * Debian could remove those contributed extensions from the org-mode package, and instead package them in org-mode-contribs, such that only the installation of the latter package would automatically add them to the Emacs load-path. * If Debian will not package those contributed extensions such that they are by default added to the Emacs load path (e.g. as is presently the case), then perhaps the package should be modified such that installing it via apt-get causes a notification to be displayed to the user informing the user of the need to manually add the relevant directory to the Emacs load-path. If any of the above solutions were adopted, then the "installation" instructions at http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-drill.html#unnumbered-2 would work fine for future Debian Jessie users - which would save them quite a lot of time, if they're anything like me ;-) Alternatively, if for some reason none of the improvements I suggested are acceptable, then perhaps the Debian packagers/developers could work with the Worg contributors to improve their installation instructions, so that their online documentation accurately reflects the steps needed to get packages like org-drill and org-depend working on Debian? Many thanks for your patience in reading this long email! Sam P.S. Unlikely to be relevant, but just in case you are wondering which Emacs and Org versions are on this computer, `M-x emacs-version` gives: GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.14.5) of 2015-03-07 on binet, modified by Debian and `M-x org-version` gives: Org-mode version 8.2.10 (8.2.10-dist @ /usr/share/emacs24/site-lisp/org-mode/)
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