bug#30552: 27.0.50; Incorrect link to Early Init File node and Early Init File clarification

[Kaushal Modi]

X-Debbugs-CC: radon.neon@gmail.com

Hello,

I was following the changes for the early init file in the emacs manual, and I across:

> After a package is installed, it is automatically made available by
Emacs in all subsequent sessions.  This happens at startup, before
processing the init file but after processing the early init file (*note
(elisp)Early Init File::).  As an exception, Emacs does not make
packages available at startup if invoked with the ‘-q’ or
‘--no-init-file’ options (*note Initial Options::).

   To keep Emacs from automatically making packages available at
startup, change the variable ‘package-enable-at-startup’ to ‘nil’.  You
must do this in the early init file (*note (elisp)Early Init File::), as

in (emacs) Package Installation

It looks like the (elisp)Early Init File node does not exist.. navigating there gives:

user-error: No such node or anchor: ‘Early Init File’

But there *is* a (emacs) Early Init File node.

So, may be just needs /(elisp)/(emacs)/ ?

Here's a related request:

In (emacs) Early Init File, it says:

> However, it is sometimes desirable to
have customizations that take effect during Emacs startup earlier than
the normal init file is processed.  Such customizations can be put in
the early init file, ‘~/.emacs.d/early-init.el’.

It's not clear what those customizations are.. can you put a definitive list of customizations that if one does *have* to now be in early-init.el?

For example, now package-user-dir *has* to be in early-init.el, but that variable is not mentioned in that node.

If a list of variables cannot be listed in there for the sake of maintenance.. there should be some way for a user to figure out if a variable *needs to be* in early-init.el or *can be* in init.el.

Example:

- package-user-dir has to be in early-init.el

- But having package-archives in init.el is fine.

Why so? The answer to that Why needs to go in the Early Init File node.

Thanks.

In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.23)
 of 2018-02-19
Repository revision: 071a0a571243f9498e0e58e5fe938a7b892a22db
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.60900000
System Description: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release 6.6 (Santiago)

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Kaushal Modi