install-info problem at startup

[mikereape]

Hi

I'm trying to get el-get working in Windows native Emacs 26.3 64-bit for Windows 10 (Pro) in line with Jessica Hamrick's post at http://www.jesshamrick.com/2012/09/18/emacs-as-a-python-ide/. If you check her post you'll see it references her Emacs configuration at https://github.com/jhamrick/emacs. All I am using from there is the .emacs file and the .emacs.d directory. I have not downloaded anything separately from el-get or compiled anything or run the bootstrap method. The straight el-get advice at https://github.com/dimitri/el-get should be enough. I did run (repeatedly) the "lazy installer" and started from scratch every time I tried to get this to work. My .emacs file is attached.

For independent reasons I installed msys2 and it makes a lot of sense to do it that way in terms of el-get, etc. and addresses a lot of use cases and solves a tonne of el-get-unrelated problems.

When I start Emacs I get the messages in the "*Messages*" buffer attached.

~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get/el-get.info is there but it doesn't seem to like the . in c:/Users/miker/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get/./el-get.info dir in the Messages buffer that appears after I start Emacs.

OTOH, I can do this in Powershell:

  PS C:\Users\miker> C:\msys64\usr\bin\install-info.exe C:\Users\miker\.emacs.d\el-get\el-get\el-get.info C:/msys64/usr/share/info/dir
  install-info: warning: no info dir entry in `\Users\miker\.emacs.d\el-get\el-get\el-get.info'
  PS C:\Users\miker>

which to my mind means that the single . is part of the problem, that install-info.exe is there and from lines 3-6 of c:/Users/miker/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get/el-get.info:

  INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs
  START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
  * El-Get: (el-get).        Using el-get to manage your Emacs Extensions.
  END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY

you seem to want to find/put(?) el-get.info in the Emacs info dir. I have this line at the very top of my .emacs file:

(add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "c:/msys64/usr/share/info/")

as per the advice at https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/InfoPath.

To my mind anyway this should do it and again I think it makes a lot of sense to have msys2 installed if you want to use el-get with native Emacs on Windows.

I don't think this is related to the problem at https://github.com/dimitri/el-get/issues/861 or the solution at https://github.com/dimitri/el-get/commit/6f9f14c4b8d9fd92c17a138cfa033e0a4e10ad26.

I'd be very grateful for any help. Please note that I do NOT want to install and/or investigate Cygwin as a solution, nor IMHO, should I have to.

Thanks in advance Mike

(PS) The .txt file extension on .emacs is just to be able to upload it. Messages.txt

.emacs.txt

[npostavs]

There should be some more info in the *el-get-build: el-get* buffer.

you seem to want to find/put(?) el-get.info in the Emacs info dir

I believe the intention is to add the package's info file to a per-package dir, not the global Emacs one.

[priyadarshan]

I bumped into this myself.

I do have install-info.exe in PATH, as I can run it properly from emacs using M-!. If el-get is already installed, it will be used by package installs (like org-mode).

But runningel-get installer on a fresh emacs config will not find that binary, no matter what.

I tried with Msys2 and Ezwinports version too, with same issue: binaries are visible and runnable from M-!, but not seen by installer at first run.

The only solution I found was to install make and texinfo from GnuWin32 project.

The installers will install both programs in C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin. For good measure I also added that path to the Windows Path system variable.

Perhaps this behaviors could be listed in wiki's Installation on Windows?