Removing Embedded Packages in Emacs

Question

Can I remove embedded Emacs packages, such as "tetris"? They cannot be marked for deletion in the list of packages from 24.1. It would be nice to have a minimal Emacs installation - although this is hardly useful - by removing some or all of the built-in packages. Is there any way to do it, and will this ability add in the future?

Answer 1

Emacs should be launched and used even if the entire lisp directory is empty (note that we rarely / never check it, so I can’t guarantee that it will work, but at least in principle it should and if you should not report it using Mx report-emacs-bug ). Therefore, do not hesitate to remove all and all packages there that you will not find useful in order to create a shortened version of Emacs.

Answer 2

You can simply delete the elc files of all the packages you want.

For example, in the emacs version located in the ubuntu repository, the tetris package is located in:

 /usr/share/emacs/23.3/lisp/play/tetris.elc 

If you move or delete it, emacs will continue to work, but you will no longer be able to play Tetris.

Answer 3

You might want to check the package--builtins variable. However, it makes no sense to remove packages installed through package.el , since package.el automatically extracts and downloads only the autoload packages, therefore, the presence of many installed packages does not lead to significant overhead. I am pretty sure that removing embedded packages will never be a package.el function.