I was setting up easy installation of Elisp, a useful Emacs program, while referencing the article below, but I got stuck due to a basic mistake and solved it, so I’ll share the solution. 　

・Reference：Configuration Course for Emacs Beginners Who Want to Use It Actively!! Part 1. - Daily, Ton Speaks. 　

I hope this helps other Emacs beginners. 　

[Added: 2011/09/01] 　

install-elisp.el apparently has a successor version called auto-install.el, so it’s usually better to use this one. 　

・Auto-install EmacsLisp packages with auto-install.el → Batch install anything.el related - (rubikitch loves (Emacs Ruby CUI Books)) 　 　

First, I searched for the location of .emacs.d using the find command. 　

# find / -name .emacs.d
/root/.emacs.d

　

Download install-elisp.el from www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/download/install-elisp.el and place it in .emacs.d. 　

I also searched for the location of .emacs, but this was the mistake. 　

# find / -name .emacs
/etc/skel/.emacs

　

Because I wrote configuration in the .emacs under directory /etc/skel/, install-elisp couldn’t be used from emacs. 　

Correctly, you should create a new .emacs file directly under the home directory and write the following 3 lines: 　

(setq load-path (cons "~/.emacs.d/elisp" load-path))
(require 'install-elisp)
(setq install-elisp-repository-directory "~/.emacs.d/elisp/")

　

I realized my mistake after reading an article by Shikajiro (@shikajiro). Thank you. 　

・2010-12-24 - Shikajiro Makes Programs! 　

Now I can finally use M-x install-elisp. 　

That’s all.

That’s all from the Gemba.