Emacs not loading ~/.config/emacs/init.el when first launched inside a
distrobox container
reddit / emacs

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BlondOlaf · 2022-10-05 14:05

Hi,

I want to run emacs inside a development container (as I'm using
Fedora Silverblue), but I'm having a weird issue:

My config files are all in \~/.config/emacs/, but just after the
launch of the container (distrobox-enter), emacs creates \~/.emacs and
\~/.emacs.d and ignores the config folder.

If I stop emacs, delete \~/.emacs and \~/.emacs.d and restart emacs,
my init.el in \~/.config/emacs/ is considered and emacs starts
configured the proper way.

For now I think I will just move my config folder, but if you think
this is an issue I might need to report on the mailing list, or if you
can help me investigate a bit more, feel free to help me!

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BlondOlaf · 2022-10-05 14:09

Ok, it seems that even .emacs.d is not taken into account and .emacs
is created when first running emacs

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BlondOlaf · 2022-10-05 14:39

After a bit more digging, the issue seems to come from distrobox, I'll
try to ask on their bug tracker

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alternateved · 2022-10-05 15:31

If you don't mind me asking, what would be your planned workflow with
Emacs and Silverblue?

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BlondOlaf · 2022-10-05 15:40

Emacs and every software I need for development inside a container,
and a .desktop file to launch it from the desktop

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alternateved · 2022-10-05 16:24

So the advantage of that would be to seperate development environment
from the OS, right?

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ZealousZera · 2022-10-06 07:05

I think in emacs you can view the load path. perhaps a file exists
somewhere in that path already. if it exists, like ~/.emacs, the
others arent loaded

also run `echo "$XDG_CONFIG_DIR"` if it is not `<value of
$HOME>/.config` that might be why it isnt loaded

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BlondOlaf · 2022-10-26 08:36

For anyone using this post in the future, it is now fixed by the dev
of distrobox: [https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/issues/458](https
://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/issues/458)

It was caused by the fact that distrobox was copying content of
/etc/skel (which contained a .emacs file) to the home directory if the
files were not there