Can't find .emacs file..

[dfnkt]

I have recently installed emacs23 using apt through terminal. I am starting to work with both python and ruby so I thought I would give emacs a shot. Now I have no previous experience with emacs or vi/vim/viper, just want to toss that out there.

I have looked in ~/ for .emacs using ls -a and even tried sudo find / -name *emacs* and was unable to locate any file named .emacs. I am looking specifically for this file so I can enable:

1.) Syntax Highlighting
2.) Electric Braces, Parens, etc.

I am not a linux guru either but I can usually find my way around fairly easily.

[Anthorn]

I think emacs is installed in the directory you're in when it's installed

In the terminal try $ whereis emacs

try /etc/emacs and /usr/share/emacs

[dfnkt]

dfnkt@Osiris /etc $ whereis emacs
emacs: /usr/bin/emacs /etc/emacs /usr/lib/emacs /usr/share/emacs /usr/share/man/man1/emacs.1.gz

dfnkt@Osiris /usr/share/emacs $ ls
23.1 site-lisp

/usr/bin/emacs isn't a dir, neither is /etc/emacs. Do I just need to create the file?

[Anthorn]

Oops, sorry, didn't see the "." bit. Yes it needs to be created ~/.emacs and then the configuration entered which is then invoked when emacs is launched. Try searching Mint forums for the .emacs file configuration and look at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/documenta ... -file.html This is for Fedora, can't find one for Mint but I assume it will be the same. The system configuration file should be at /etc/emacs