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| 2 | 2 | date = 2024-07-11T20:24:02 |
| 3 | 3 | title = "Emacs on iPadOS" |
| 4 | 4 | description = "Learn how to install and use Emacs on the Apple Silicon iPad natively." |
| 5 | draft = true | |
| 5 | draft = false | |
| 6 | 6 | +++ |
| 7 | 7 | |
| 8 | This post describes the process to install and use Emacs on the iPad Air 13-inch | |
| 8 | This post describes the process to install and use Emacs on the iPad Air 13-inch | |
| 9 | 9 | (M2). The iPad used in this post is running iPadOS 17.6. |
| 10 | 10 | |
| 11 | 11 | ## Shell Application |
| 12 | 12 | |
| 13 | In order to use Emacs on an iPad, you will need a terminal emulator application. | |
| 14 | I recommend [iSH](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243), since | |
| 15 | it runs a version of Alpine Linux within the app itself and will allow you to | |
| 13 | In order to use Emacs on an iPad, you will need a terminal emulator application. | |
| 14 | I recommend [iSH](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ish-shell/id1436902243), since | |
| 15 | it runs a version of Alpine Linux within the app itself and will allow you to | |
| 16 | 16 | install packages that you need. |
| 17 | 17 | |
| 18 |  | |
| 18 |  | |
| 19 | 19 | |
| 20 | 20 | ## Require Packages |
| 21 | 21 | |
| 22 | I started by adding the required packages directly within iSH. Emacs should | |
| 23 | install dependencies by default, but I include a few other packages that I use | |
| 22 | I started by adding the required packages directly within iSH. Emacs should | |
| 23 | install dependencies by default, but I include a few other packages that I use | |
| 24 | 24 | in my terminal as well. |
| 25 | 25 | |
| 26 | 26 | ```sh |
| 27 | 27 | apk add emacs ripgrep fd findutils |
| 28 | 28 | ``` |
| 29 | 29 | |
| 30 |  | |
| 30 |  | |
| 31 | 32 | |
| 32 | 33 | ## Emacs |
| 33 | 34 | |
| 34 | Once this is complete, you should be able to run Emacs natively on your iPad. | |
| 35 | It's fairly effective, but can be slow at times. | |
| 35 | Once this is complete, you should be able to run Emacs natively on your iPad. | |
| 36 | It's effective, but can be slow at times. | |
| 36 | 37 | |
| 37 | I attempted to also install Doom Emacs, which technically worked, but was so | |
| 38 | incredibly slow and buggy that I was not even able to take screenshots. Someone | |
| 38 | I attempted to also install Doom Emacs, which technically worked, but was so | |
| 39 | incredibly slow and buggy that I was not even able to take screenshots. Someone | |
| 39 | 40 | smarter than me could likely get it to work with a little tinkering. |
| 40 | 41 | |
| 41 |  | |
| 42 |  | |
| 42 | 43 | |
| 43 | ### Annoyances | |
| 44 | ### MELPA | |
| 44 | 45 | |
| 45 | While Emacs is running at this point, it's not perfect. There is no `.emacs` | |
| 46 | file by default, installing a framework like Doom seemed to be too much, and | |
| 47 | some utilities and packages are missing from the bare Alpine installation. | |
| 46 | You also have to remember to hook up MELPA yourself in the `.emacs` file to be | |
| 47 | able to search through their 5700+ packages instead of just ELPA packages. If | |
| 48 | you don't, you will only have access to ELPA packages like the ones below. | |
| 48 | 49 | |
| 49 | There also seems to be a problem getting a wider selection of packages from | |
| 50 | MELPA, but you can see below that a handful of readily-available packages. I | |
| 51 | likely just need to change my configuration for MELPA, but I did not explore | |
| 52 | this area further. | |
| 50 |  | |
| 53 | 51 | |
| 54 | You can test this out yourself with `M-x package-install <search-termœ>`. | |
| 52 | Once you have MELPA, you can install packages like the `dashboard` package shown | |
| 53 | below. | |
| 55 | 54 | |
| 56 |  | |
| 55 |  | |
| 56 | ||
| 57 | ### Speed | |
| 58 | ||
| 59 | While Emacs will run on my iPad, it's not perfect. The largest issue on my | |
| 60 | iPad is speed - loading Emacs takes 6-7 seconds and installing the `magit` | |
| 61 | package took 129 seconds. | |
| 62 | ||
| 63 | I haven't played around enough to optimize loading times and poke around to see | |
| 64 | why the network requests take so long, but it's a big enough issue that I | |
| 65 | wouldn't see casual Emacs users dealing with the lag. | |