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THe current emacs in the repository is 24.3. I would like to install 24.4 by downloading the source from its official site, compile and checkinstall to create a deb package, and then install the deb package with dpkg.

After I do it, will I be notified for any update that will be newer than my self-installed version, e.g. when running apt-get update and apt-get upgrade?

How shall I keep my emacs up-to-date, if I forget to check emacs official site?

Thanks!

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No the package will not be updated/you will not receive a notification when using the system package manager apt-get. Custom package installations are just that, custom, and for a reason, so apt doesn't meddle with both in order not to override configuration files, specific build flags or directory locations.

When you remove emacs using apt-get remove, ie. from the official repository, the package will no longer appear when running apt list installed, which are the list of packages read in the process of updating using the system package manager.

You may have a package dependency complain about the version of emacs at some point if you don't keep it up to date which would alert you to update emacs, but most likely you would get weird errors and have to figure out what is causing them.

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  • Thanks. Will your answer be different if i install it by make install instead of checkinstall and dpkg?
    – Tim
    Mar 9, 2015 at 6:32
  • Hi @Tim , no because then you are compiling as opposed to using the Debian package manager, both are independent of apt. One is the default package manager for Debian used to ease the process of maintaining packages, the other compiling from source when required, hope this makes sense.
    – kingmilo
    Mar 9, 2015 at 7:31
  • So how are you supposed to keep up to date with the wide variety of packages for which installation instructions tell you to download their install files? I can't even remember all the software I've installed, a lot of it stuff that seems to run in the background and won't tell me to update when there's a new version.
    – Addem
    Feb 22, 2017 at 16:37
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    @Addem that's why package managers were born for that exact requirement and any good advice will always recommended using the package manager to maintain your software versions etc. Added to that it is possible to maintain multiple versions of packages on a system so it does get complicated. I personally would write a script to manage packages installed outside of the systems package manager, something that keeps a timestamp and version number of the software and is referenced/checked any time you do an install without using the package manager.
    – kingmilo
    Feb 23, 2017 at 8:56

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