emacs won't run, but emacs22 will

[Paul Johnson]

In a terminal, if I type

$ emacs

the hard drive churns.  The terminal looses focus, but no emacs frame appears.

ps seems to think emacs is running.

$ ps aux | grep emacs
pauljohn  7724  2.7  1.9  30220 20228 pts/1    S+   13:35   0:01 emacs

This does work to start emacs

$ emacs22

$ ps aux | grep emacs
pauljohn  7724  1.7  1.9  30220 20228 pts/1    S+   13:35   0:01 emacs
pauljohn  7824 18.6  1.7  28296 18552 pts/3    S+   13:36   0:00 emacs22


I have tried to manipulate the /etc/alternatives settings so that
typing emacs makes emacs22 start,  but it just refuses.  I'm
completely stumped.  I've tried removing all emacs completely,
installing only emacs22-gtk. Still, ordinary "emacs" does nothing.

$ ls -la /usr/bin/emacs*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      23 2008-07-23 11:10 /usr/bin/emacs ->
/etc/alternatives/emacs
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      25 2008-05-26 18:46 /usr/bin/emacs22 ->
/etc/alternatives/emacs22
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5465260 2008-05-03 04:10 /usr/bin/emacs22-gtk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5473496 2008-05-03 04:10 /usr/bin/emacs22-x

$ ls -la /etc/alternatives/emacs*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2008-07-23 11:10 /etc/alternatives/emacs ->
/usr/bin/emacs22-gtk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2008-07-23 10:56 /etc/alternatives/emacs22
-> /usr/bin/emacs22-gtk


Here i've tried to make emacs point to exactly the same place as
emacs22, but it won't run.

I've even tried to go Rambo on it with

$ rm /usr/bin/emacs
$ ln -sf /usr/bin/emacs22-gtk /usr/bin/emacs

Still, same problem. no emacs appears.


I have these packages installed:

$ dpkg -l |grep emacs
ii  emacs-ess-ku                               1.0.0-1
                           Emacs startup config I prefer for KU labs
rc  emacs21                                    21.4a+1-5.3ubuntu1.1
                           The GNU Emacs editor
rc  emacs21-bin-common                         21.4a+1-5.3ubuntu1.1
                           The GNU Emacs editor's shared, architecture
ii  emacs22                                    22.1-0ubuntu10.1
                           The GNU Emacs editor (Emacs 22)
ii  emacs22-bin-common                         22.1-0ubuntu10.1
                           The GNU Emacs editor's shared, architecture
ii  emacs22-common                             22.1-0ubuntu10.1
                           The GNU Emacs editor's common
infrastructure
ii  emacs22-el                                 22.1-0ubuntu10.1
                           GNU Emacs LISP (.el) files
ii  emacs22-gtk                                22.1-0ubuntu10.1
                           The GNU Emacs editor (with GTK+ 2.x
support)
ii  emacsen-common                             1.4.17


Any other diagnostic information that might help?

$ which emacs
/usr/bin/emacs
$ type emacs
emacs is /usr/bin/emacs

It is only frustrating because I am accustomed to typing "emacs" and
not "emacs22".  That, plus none of the configurations and scripts I
have will work without being changed to "emacs22".


-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas