Optimizing Emacs for speed and efficiency involves fine-tuning its startup process, managing essential settings, and handling package installations, etc. The minimal-emacs.d repository hosts a minimal Emacs configuration with early-init.el and init.el files designed to serve as a base for your vanilla Emacs configuration, offering a robust foundation for a better vanilla Emacs experience.

Installation

Execute the following command to clone this repository into ~/.emacs.d:

git clone https://github.com/jamescherti/minimal-emacs.d ~/.emacs.dCode language: plaintext (plaintext)

Features

1. Performance Improvements:
   • Increases the amount read from processes in a single chunk.
   • Reduces rendering workload by not rendering cursors or regions in non-focused windows.
   • Disables warnings from the legacy advice API and suppresses warnings about aliased variables.
   • Avoids unnecessary UI updates.
   • Disables font compacting to avoid high memory usage.
   • Customizes file-name-handler-alist for improved startup time and package load time.
   • Prefers loading newer compiled files.
   • Reduces startup screen and message noise, including removing the “For information about GNU Emacs…” message.
   • Configures Emacs to start with a scratch buffer in fundamental-mode to shave seconds off startup time.
   • Delays garbage collection during startup to improve performance and resets it to a more reasonable value once Emacs has started.
2. Native Compilation and Byte Compilation:
   • Configures native compilation and byte compilation settings
   • Suppresses compiler warnings and errors during native compilation.
3. UI Element Management:
   • Disables the startup screen and messages, including menu bar, tool bar, and scroll bars.
   • Configures Emacs to avoid resizing frames and minimizes unnecessary UI updates.
4. Package Management:
   • Configures package archives and priorities for MELPA, ELPA, and other repositories.
5. Customizable Initialization Files:
   • Supports additional configuration files (pre-init.el, post-init.el, pre-early-init.el, and post-early-init.el) to allow further customization at different stages of the startup process.
6. File Management:
   • Manages auto-save and backup files, including backup options and version control settings.
7. User Experience Enhancements:
   • Configures user interface settings such as cursor behavior, scrolling, and response to prompts.
   • Disables beeping and blinking to avoid distractions.
8. Buffer and Window Configuration:
   • Sets default fringe widths and buffer boundaries.
   • Configures smooth scrolling and cursor behavior for a more seamless editing experience.

Update

To keep your Emacs configuration up to date, you can pull the latest changes from the repository. Run the following command in your terminal:

git -C ~/.emacs.d pull

Customizations

The init.el and early-init.el files should never be modified directly because they are intended to be managed by Git during an update.

The minimal-emacs.d init files support additional customization files that are loaded at different stages of the Emacs startup process. These files allow you to further customize the initialization sequence:

• ~/.emacs.d/pre-init.el: This file is loaded before init.el. Use it to set up variables or configurations that need to be available early in the initialization process but after early-init.el.
• ~/.emacs.d/post-init.el: This file is loaded after init.el. It is useful for additional configurations or package setups that depend on the configurations in init.el.
• ~/.emacs.d/pre-early-init.el: This file is loaded before early-init.el. Use it for configurations that need to be set even earlier in the startup sequence, typically affecting the initial setup of the Emacs environment.
• ~/.emacs.d/post-early-init.el: This file is loaded after early-init.el but before init.el. It is useful for setting up configurations that depend on the early initialization but need to be set before the main initialization begins.

Links

• minimal-emacs.d @GitHub