FAQ

Here is a list of general frequently asked questions.

The answer is NO.

Eask builds native executable on every release, see our release page to download it! However, Node.JS is required if you are going to develop Eask!

Here are our suggestions; if you plan to work on an OS-specific package (never going to other platforms), go for other tools. On the other hand, Eask aims to provide the best consistency between each OS. Alternatively, if you want to learn a tool that works everywhere, Eask is one of the best choices.

You can download the latest executable (snapshot) in our emacs-eask/binaries repository!

Node has better support on all kinds of terminal applications (compare to just the shell script)! Like colorful interface, entire npm community, etc. So you can build cross-platform software with fewer hassles! Especially after Microsoft had bought the NPM inc, and would likely support their own system well.

Cask does not seem to support Windows (no WSL) after version 0.8.6. In the early versions, they have used Python, but due to the Python supports on Windows are just not as good as Node.JS.

See issue #140 for more information!

yargs has a very wide community; and it has been used in many tools. It’s cross-platform! And most importantly, this is one of the tools that work well on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

There is also the major difference compared with Eask and other alternatives. Cask, makem.sh, or Eldev rely more on batch and bash. We chose a different route and would like to hand over heavy tasks to a high-level programming language, JavaScript. The development simply became easier, since we don’t need to care about different types of shells anymore!

The drawback is the NodeJS runtime, but we can simply pack the entire CLI program into an executable! That way we would not need to install Node and npm before using eask!

The example error message,

http://melpa.org/packages/lsp-mode-20220429.647.tar: Not found

The issue is caused by the mismatch from the backup archives. Generally, Eask will pick up the latest archive-contents from sources unless you have been pinging sources too many times. Then the source could block your IP for few minutes.

You can either wait for few minutes for the source to remove you from their black list. Or wait for the backup archives to update to the latest version. The backup archives repository is here.

The example error message,

Package not installable `helm'; make sure package archives are included

You would need to first ask yourself; where does the package came from and what specific source holds this package information. From the above example message, helm is listed on the melpa source. You would have to edit your Eask-file like this:

...

(source "melpa")  ; <- add this line

(depends-on "helm")

If you get this sample error message:

Loading package information... done ✓
  - Installing s (20210616.619)... Failed (status 2): git --no-pager remote get-url upstream .
...

You may have bug-reference-prog-mode enabled. It is not yet compatible with Eask and should be disabled when running any of Eask’s commands.

See this issue for more information.

If you get this sample error message:

Created your-package-0.1.0.tar containing:
tar exited with status 2
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

You might get this error while using the BSD tar. The workaround is to use GNU tar instead.

(setq package-build-tar-executable "/path/to/gnu/tar")

In Windows, BSD tar is used by default. If you have Git installed, you can use the tar executable from Git; it uses GNU tar.

Add the following code snippet to your Eask-file:

;; Use GNU tar in Windows
(when (memq system-type '(cygwin windows-nt ms-dos))
  (setq package-build-tar-executable "C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin/tar.exe"))