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There seem to be the following versions: emacs23, emacs23-nox, e3, emacs23-lucid, and jove, as choices to download. Where can I find out what the differences are?

unor
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Robert Armstrong
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    Does this answer your question? [Difference between emacs and emacs-lucid packages](https://askubuntu.com/questions/386177/difference-between-emacs-and-emacs-lucid-packages) – karel Feb 18 '20 at 12:15

1 Answers1

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The short answer is that you almost certainly want emacs23: it's the full version of Emacs 23 with graphical support.

emacs23-nox is the same, but without any graphical support. If you're installing Emacs onto a server or other environment that lacks an X window system, you should fetch this version instead. (Note that emacs23 works just fine on the terminal, so the only reason to prefer emacs23-nox to emacs23 is if you don't want to drag in the dependencies.)

e3 and jove are not Emacs; they're lightweight editors that have Emacs modes to them.

emacs23-lucid is XEmacs, which used to be called "Lucid Emacs".

Community
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Benjamin Pollack
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    2014 here. should it be emacs24 now? – Kinjal Dixit Jan 29 '14 at 08:31
  • The `-lucid` variant is useful if you want X without a graphical desktop, e.g. over ssh. – Carsten S Mar 04 '14 at 13:56
  • ^ The version without graphical support is the `-nox` variant. – SabreWolfy Apr 22 '14 at 10:42
  • There is no emacs24-nox yet. emacs23-nox is still the latest for ubuntu as of Jul 2014. – user1854266 Jul 23 '14 at 22:50
  • emacs24-nox is available as of this writing (Sept 2014). – Ted M. Young Sep 23 '14 at 23:34
  • In my environment, a relatively clean Debian 8.1, apt-get told me that emacs24nox would use ~ 104 MB of additional disk space vs 284 MB for emacs24. On my server anyway, that is significant.The size of the install was keeping me from installing the package. I didn't know there was a lighter option. I'm most grateful for the question and the answers here. – Tony Adams Aug 18 '15 at 17:59
  • `e3` is not similar to Emacs... for example, to exit, you don't use `^x ^c`, you use `^k ^q` instead. Jove is closer to Emacs, at least for most of the keystrokes, such as `^a`, `^e`, `^p`, `^n`, `^x ^c`. In fact, at UC Berkeley, some teachers and students liked to use Jove instead of Emacs (at least in the old days, not sure about now). – nonopolarity Dec 15 '15 at 11:52
  • actually, `e3` is strange... if you start it by typing `e3`, it behaves one way, but if you start it by typing `emacs`, then it behaves more like emacs – nonopolarity Dec 15 '15 at 12:13
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    @SabreWolfy, I did not express that well. I use emacs-lucid if I want to install emacs on a server and use it with X forwarded over ssh. – Carsten S Sep 05 '16 at 10:32
  • You should note that you may want the full emacs (e.g. emacs24) even on a system without a graphical console if you are going to remotely log in from another computer that is running an X server. In general, I only recommend the -nox variation if your storage is very limited (e.g. an embedded environment) – David C. Feb 26 '18 at 17:33
  • I am having `E: Package 'emacs23-nox' has no installation candidate` inside a docker image @Benjamin Pollack – alper May 05 '18 at 14:49