i built and installed XEmacs 21.5.3, last night, and have had some problems with it -- nothing that makes it crash, but still i'd count most of these as release-critical bugs, for whatever it's worth. my abilities with C are almost non-existent. as for checking the Lisp sources used in building XEmacs .. honestly, i just want to use the thing. it looks great with the GTK widgets. version: XEmacs 21.5 (patch 3) "asparagus" [Lucid] (i586-pc-linux) of Fri Sep 21 2001 on tokamak.dtdns.net from CVS sources current as of September 21, 2001 C.E., around 1am PDT. the list of configuration options i used, when building xemacs, is included at the end of this mail, after heading 'config options used' --- preliminaries: it's built with GTK-widgets and ncurses support. it was not built with ---debug i commented-out the line 'emacs_is_beta=t' in version.sh but my understanding of it was that this shouldn't disable the Lisp debugger in XEmacs. ---- here's one of the most significant problems: summary: XEmacs 21.5.3 ignores -debug-init decription: xemacs signals an error on start-up, while reading `user-init-file', but no error is signaled when -debug-init is used additionally: even though no error is signaled when -debug-init is used, the user-init-file is not fully loaded. maybe relevant: this happens whether or not 'debug-ignored-errors' is nil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- even after i (setq debug-on-error t) , still, no backtrace is being printed when an error happens. also see the next bug-report. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- when debug-on-error is t, erroneous function-calls are not causing errors to be signaled. example: (signal 'foo) whether or not foo is a defined error-symbol, it does nothing. it doesn't even cause a wrong-number-of-arguments error to be signaled. another example: (qux #<quo>) evaluating any type of erroneous form does nothing. interactive evaluation doesn't even cause a return-value to be printed in the modeline. conditions: - happens when debug-on-error is t , but not when debug-on-error is nil (backwards! but even when debug-on-error is disabled, it should still be displaying a message in the modeline, which it's not doing.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sometimes it prints this error message: Symbol's function definition is void: debug It happens, sometimes, (1) after start-up in a TTY, when trying to move past the end of the buffer [apparently not repeatable], or, (2) in X, [repeatedly] when trying to run `indent-for-tab-command' in a buffer in emacs-lisp-mode, on a new line after this: (if (featurep 'gtk) (setq debug-on-error t) isn't doing what it should, so i can't even get a backtrace on it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- in XFree86 v.4 , with XEmacs GTK+Gnome, xemacs keeps beeping at me, even though i've done enough that should make it not do so. it doesn't happen when using TTY, but it does happen when using the GTK GUI. it happens even after the following has been done: 1) shell-command: xset b off 2) (setq bell-volume 0) 3) disabled GNOME 'event sounds' via the GNOME control-center 4) configured xemacs --with-sound=none with those conditions, it beeps on: - key-sequence C-g - key-sequence C-] - (signal 'quit nil) but, doing this: (setq debug-on-quit t) ...causes it to not beep after any of those three events. - trying to go past end-of-buffer, using `next-line', but not when using `scroll-up-command' also: when trying to use `next-line' to go past the end of the buffer, an error is signaled: 'Symbol's function definition is void: debug' it doesn't beep when: (signal 'buffer-read-only nil) (error "test") ...miscellaneous errors ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --with-clash-detection isn't working. i had a file opened in an XEmacs running on X then i opened it in an XEmacs running in a TTY and neither of 'em noticed that the file was being edited by a user in another XEmacs process. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- `pui-list-packages' isn't working. when i try to evaluate it as a function-call, or to run it from the menu, all xemacs does is just sit there. it doesn't freeze or go into a loop. it just looks like it treated it as no-op. i get no error-message about it, either, regardless of whether `debug-on-error' is nil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- `describe-function', though defined as interactive, is not working interactively. i can get docs about it with "C-h k C-h f", but when i try to run it with "C-h f", something signals : Symbol's function definition is void: debug it works when i run it from lisp-evaluation, like so: (describe-function 'if) then eval-last-sexp, but that ain't quite enough. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- config options used: note that debug was fully disabled in it. i commented-out 'emacs_is_beta' in version.sh , to turn off the automatic "--debug" config option, to get some extra run-time speed out of it. (shell-command (mapconcat 'identity '("/usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-cvs/configure" "--with-dragndrop" "--srcdir=/usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-cvs" "--with-sound=none" "--with-menubars=lucid" "--with-scrollbars=lucid" "--with-dialogs=athena" "--with-athena=3d" "--with-xface=no" "--with-pop" "--with-site-lisp" "--with-site-modules" "--with-clash-detection" "--use-union-type" "--memory-usage-stats" "--with-modules" "--with-site-lisp=yes" "--infopath=/usr/info:/usr/local/info:/usr/share/info" "--with-netinstall" "--with-file-coding" "--use-union-type" "--with-postgresql" "--with-ncurses" "--with-gpm" "--with-gnome" "--with-gtk" "--with-jpeg" "--with-png" "--with-tiff" "--with-gpm" "--with-ldap" ) " ")) ----------------------------------------------------------------------x here's what configure printed about it: --- XEmacs 21.5.3 "asparagus" configured for `i586-pc-linux'. Compilation / Installation: Source code location: /usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-cvs Installation prefix: /usr/local Operating system description file: `s/linux.h' Machine description file: `m/intel386.h' Compiler: gcc -g -O3 -Wall -Wno-switch -Winline -Wmissing-prototypes -Wsign-compare -Wshadow Relocating allocator for buffers: no GNU version of malloc: yes - Using Doug Lea's new malloc from the GNU C Library. Window System: Using GTK menubars. Using GTK scrollbars. Using GTK dialog boxes. Using GTK native widgets. Compiling in support for Drag'n'Drop (EXPERIMENTAL). - Drag'n'Drop prototype: GTK. TTY: Compiling in support for ncurses. Compiling in support for GPM (General Purpose Mouse). Images: Compiling in support for GIF images (builtin). Compiling in support for XPM images. Compiling in support for PNG images. Compiling in support for JPEG images. Compiling in support for TIFF images. Sound: Databases: Compiling in support for Berkeley database. Compiling in support for LDAP. Compiling in support for PostgreSQL. - Using PostgreSQL header file: postgresql/libpq-fe.h - Using PostgreSQL V7 bindings. Internationalization: Compiling in support for file coding. Mail: Compiling in support for POP mail retrieval. Compiling in support for "dot-locking" mail spool file locking method. Other Features: Compiling in support for dynamic shared object modules. Using the union type for Lisp_Objects.