avatarSetting up an emacs server 😈

May 8th, 2020

Booting up emacs can be a challenging task for your terminal emulator and the rock that you tricked into thinking. This is a quick guide with some pointers on speeding up your emacs interactions 100x. No joke.

Emacs daemon

Starting the emacs daeman cannot be even simpler, just type this in your favorite shell

% emacs --daemon

It should build all your .el config scripts and boot up your own emacs server.

Emacsclient

Now to access and open your emacs daemon, just type in

% emacsclient -nw

I really prefer terminal client and you’re done! Notice that the load was almost instantaneous. Instead of loading your whole emacs config, it just redraws the screen.

Killing daemon

Who doesn’t want to slaughter a daemon in cold blood? That’s a rhetorical question. emaclient can execute a kill command for the daemon

% emacsclient -e "(kill-emacs)"

Shell aliases

emacsclient can get old real quick. I like adding super simple aliases for faster opening

Systemd daemon

You can also set emacs daemon to start automatically by adding systemctl symlinks. More information on emacswiki. ◼︎