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Emacs Server

People often claim that Emacs is slower compared to other editors, particularly when using multiple external packages. Personally, I start Emacs in "server-mode" alongside my graphical environment, allowing me to quickly connect to that server later on.

It can be easily done by editing `~/.xinitrc' file (this file is being used by `xinit(1)' to start the X Window System server and a first client program).

# .xinitrc
# ...
emacs --daemon
# ...

According to `emacs(1)' the `emacs --daemon' command starts Emacs as daemon (o rly?), enables Emacs server and disconnects from the terminal.

With server running in the background, we can connect to it with the `emacsclient(1)' command:

emacsclient -c -a ""

To create a new frame, the flag `-c' is used. This is particularly useful when Emacs is already open but you don't want to reuse the existing frame. The second flag, `-a', initiates an alternate editor if the Emacs server is not running. If it's left empty, as in this case, it runs `emacs --daemon' and attempts to connect to it.

To make my life easier, I have placed that line in a file named `ec', made it executable, and saved it in a directory within my `PATH' (in my case, it is `/usr/local/bin/'). Now, I can launch the Emacs client just like any other program.