Ubuntu Emacs Org-Mode Setup

Emacs works straight out of the box on Ubuntu however, at the time of writing, Ubuntu 12.04 still only comes with org-version 6.33.  It’s worth installing the latest version.  The installation instructions are on the org-mode site http://orgmode.org/manual/Installation.html, but they’re not quite complete.

 Install the latest version of Org-Mode

  1. Download the org-mode files and copy to a suitable location (I put them in the Ubuntu One folder so they’re easily shared between PCs)
  2. sudo apt-get install texinfo.  This is the missing step that ensures the next part works correctly
  3. Navigate to the org-8.x folder and sudo make autoloads and then sudo make install
  4. Finally, add (add-to-list ‘load-path “/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/org”) to your .emacs file

Unity Keybindings

Some of the Unity keybindings overwrite those of standard org-mode.  I get particularly frustrated not being able to use S-M-<UP> to sort lines.  The following sorts this out:

  1. sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
  2. Launch compiz-config-settings-manager
  3. Dash Home -> CompizConfig Settings Manager-> Scale(icon) under Windows Management Category -> Bindings(tab) -> Initiate Windows Picker -> change to <Shift><Super>Up or similar

Alt and Alt Gr

I don’t make use of the way Ubuntu distinguishes between these two keys, and I prefer to set the Alt Gr key to act just like the Alt.  For one thing, it makes it easier on the hands to type M-f and M-b when moving forward and backwards through words (something I do a lot when editing) .  Making this change on Ubuntu 12.04 is easy

  • Open Keyboard Layout from the dash.  Choose Options, Alt/Win Key behaviour and select Alt and Meta are on Alt Keys

Note you you can also swap the Ctrl and Caps lock this way if you prefer.
For older versions of Ubuntu, the Keyboard Layout preferences are found on a tab in Keyboard in System Settings

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Published by Tony Ballantyne

Writer and Tech blogger

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