Is there any issue with using an older version of mu4e for an extended period?

[Zoltán Király]

Hello,
I use Debian 12 Stable, and I've noticed that the version of mu4e in the official package repository is 1.8.13. Although everything is working perfectly fine, I'm curious if sticking with this older version might pose issues in the near future in the sense that I won't be able to use mu4e. Features are not a priority for me, which is why I chose to stick with Debian. If I were to compile from source, I'd be concerned about violating their philosophy as outlined in https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#A.27make_install.27_can_conflict_with_packages

I appreciate any suggestions. Thank you.

Best regards,

Zoltan

[Ben Thaler]

I am still on the latest version of 1.8 and so far I have not experienced any problems with it.

Mu4e is a package I depend on for productivity and I cannot spend time on fixing problems. 

In the past, I have broken my simple Emacs config twice by upgrading mu4e. Now I stay on the previous version until after I have studied the changes in detail and most bugs have been found.

I know it's selfish, but even half a day without mu4e and org-mode would doom me. 

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[Zoltán Király]

Thank you for the response. I also prefer programs that don't change, which is why I chose Debian. I've spent a lot of time with bleeding-edge distributions like Fedora and ended up being caught off guard when I least expected it. I'd rather stick with older but well-tested software, even for an extended period of a year or two, until the next stable Debian release comes out. The Debian team will create a backport for Emacs 29.1 soon; they've been working on it for the past two weeks. However, it's possible that mu4e may not be updated in the next one or two years. I don't really care as long as it works.

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

What kind of problem do you expect?

While I encourage people to use the latest stable version (1.10.7 right now),
there's nothing to stop you from using an older version; I promise I
won't come to your house and check.

I wouldn't expect any further improvements for 1.8 though, but if you're
fine with what you have, that's not an issue.

Kind regards,
Dirk.

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[Zoltán Király]

I compiled the latest version of mu4e using these steps:

$ sudo apt install libglib2.0-dev libgmime-3.0-dev libxapian-dev guile-3.0-dev texinfo install-info

$ ./autogen.sh
$ make
$ sudo make install

Everything works fine but I was wondering if I could avoid using the last step, the one with 'sudo,' and instead install it in the home folder, perhaps in a folder like '.local,' and then manually set the path in Emacs?

[Zoltán Király]

When I run "meson" to build mu4e it says that Emacs is not found. Indeed, I compiled emacs into my folder into ~/.local/opt/emacs/ Is there a way to tell mu4e installation where is Emacs located?

[Zoltán Király]

I successfully compiled Emacs into my home directory, and it's running without any issues. In fact, even in the absence of a system-wide installation of Emacs, simply running the 'make' command within its source directory generates the necessary binaries that can be executed directly from the 'src' folder."

This is how I compiled emacs

$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure --without-compress-install --with-native-compilation --with-json --with-mailutils --with-tree-sitter CC=gcc-12
$ make -j 4 
$ sudo make install  <---- I can omit this because the binary is already in the source folder's "src" folder and it works fine. Both "emacs" and "emacsclient" binaries work fine.

So I can just start Emacs by issuing: /home/zoltan/Downloads/emacs-29.1/src/emacs


However, I'm facing difficulties in configuring mu4e to recognize the location. The following approach doesn't seem to work:

$ ./autogen.sh EMACS=/home/zoltan/Downloads/emacs-29.1/src/emacs

in case of mu4e. Any suggestion would be appreciated.

[Zoltán Király]

Okay, I think I found the solution by adding "/home/zoltan/Downloads/emacs-29.1/src/emacs" to the PATH. 

But even then I'm wondering if there is a way to tell mu4e to install all its stuff inside the home folder and not inside /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. I want it inside /home/zoltan/Downloads/emacs-29.1/site-lisp

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

On Sunday Oct 01 2023, Zoltán Király wrote:

> Okay, I think I found the solution by adding
> "/home/zoltan/Downloads/emacs-29.1/src/emacs" to the PATH.
> But even then I'm wondering if there is a way to tell mu4e to install all
> its stuff inside the home folder and not inside
> /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. I want it inside
> /home/zoltan/Downloads/emacs-29.1/site-lisp
> On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 2:26:26 AM UTC+3 Zoltán Király wrote:

It's fine to run mu/mu4e _un_installed (from the build/) directory.

But you can also install it wherever you want; just use `meson' directly
(steps at the end of README.org) and pass `--prefix' etc.
(see `meson setup --help').

[Zoltán Király]

Thank you. I choose to compile Emacs from source because the version in Debian Stable is 28, and it often takes a significant amount of time for them to backport newer versios. Also, I believe there are some advantages to compiling from source. However, I encountered issues last week when I removed the source-built Emacs using "sudo make uninstall,' followed by 'make clean' and 'make distclean,' and then installed the repository version of Emacs. These problems were severe enough that I had to perform a full Debian reinstall.

The idea is that I need to decide between using the source or the repo version. Now to be extra safe, I prefer compiling to my home directory if possible.That's why I asked. 

Thank you for your response, and I apologize if I may have come across as a bit impolite in my previous message. I didn't mean to imply that newer versions of mu4e have bugs; it was simply my lack of knowledge on how to compile it. Now, things are clear to me. In any case, I don't plan to change it frequently, but if I were to uninstall it with Meson, I keep thinking about how I could do that.

[Dirk-Jan C. Binnema]

On Monday Oct 02 2023, Zoltán Király wrote:

> Thank you. I choose to compile Emacs from source because the version in
> Debian Stable is 28, and it often takes a significant amount of time for
> them to backport newer versios. Also, I believe there are some advantages
> to compiling from source. However, I encountered issues last week when I
> removed the source-built Emacs using "sudo make uninstall,' followed by
> 'make clean' and 'make distclean,' and then installed the repository
> version of Emacs. These problems were severe enough that I had to perform a
> full Debian reinstall.

`sudo make install` should be all that's necessary and be safe (or file
a bug against emacs!), assuming you use the default locations for
installation.

`make clean` and `make distclean` just clean the build directory.

> The idea is that I need to decide between using the source or the repo
> version. Now to be extra safe, I prefer compiling to my home directory if
> possible.That's why I asked.
>
> Thank you for your response, and I apologize if I may have come across as a
> bit impolite in my previous message. I didn't mean to imply that newer
> versions of mu4e have bugs; it was simply my lack of knowledge on how to
> compile it. Now, things are clear to me. In any case, I don't plan to
> change it frequently, but if I were to uninstall it with Meson, I keep
> thinking about how I could do that.
> On Monday, October 2, 2023 at 9:03:37 AM UTC+3 djcb wrote:

Newer versions of mu4e unfortunately do have bugs, but so do older
versions :-) Generally, newer *released* versions have _fewer_ bugs and
more useful features.

[Zoltán Király]

Thank you very much for your help. I really appreciate your time. I successfully installed the newest mu4e in my HOME folder using the following commands:

$ sudo apt install meson libglib2.0-dev libgmime-3.0-dev libxapian-dev guile-3.0-dev texinfo install-info
$ meson build --prefix=$HOME/.local
$ ninja -C build
$ ninja -C build install

[Zoltán Király]

The author of Elfeed also mentioned this HOME folder technique, and it appears that he is a Debian Stable user, just like me. https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/06/19/

[Ben Thaler]

FYI 29.1 is now in Debian 12 backports and works fine.

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[Zoltán Király]

That's true. Thank you so much.

It appears that mu4e is not up-to-date in Debian Stable. It's still at version 1.8.14, and the same situation exists in the Testing branch.
I wrote these instructions to compile it for source which works great with the backported Emacs.

https://gist.github.com/zoliky/a43693bc307096ba7298234934ab2575