Emacs package managers are slow on Windows.

I'll show you how to manage packages as git submodules and then configure them with use-package.

We'll run over how to defer package loading with use-package to maintain a quick load time across Windows/macOS/Linux.

First, let's create a lib directory which we'll use to store our git submodules:

mkdir lib

then, let's bring in use-package

git submodule add https://github.com/jwiegley/use-package lib/use-package

this will add a reference to use-package in a newly created .gitmodules file.

All that's left is to bring in use-package in our emacs config:

(defvar emacs-dir
  (eval-when-compile (file-truename user-emacs-directory))
  "The path to the .emacs.d directory. Must end with a slash.")

(push (concat emacs-dir "lib/use-package/") load-path)

(eval-when-compile
  (require 'use-package))

Now we're ready to start pulling in packages.

Let's bring in the dash library:

git submodule add https://github.com/magnars/dash.el lib/dash

Because we're using git submodules, whenever we configure a package we need to set the load-path:

(use-package dash
  :load-path "lib/dash"
  :defer)

_{^{I like to add :defer here when configuring libraries like dash, request, s etc.}}

For a simple package like dash, that's it.

Let's add another package that requires more configuration.

git submodule add https://github.com/abo-abo/ace-window lib/ace-window

(use-package ace-window
  :load-path "lib/ace-window"
  :commands ace-swap-window
  :config (setq aw-keys '(?a ?s ?d ?f ?g ?h ?j ?k ?l))
  :bind ("C-x o" . ace-window))

_{^{The :commands keyword will create an autoload for the ace-swap-window function, defering loading of it until used.}}

Rinse and repeat for each package you want to use. Some packages require a bit of trial and error, so I like to check their source code and see what other packages they may depend on.

Removing a package

To remove a package we need to carry out 3 steps:

• Remove the package directory from lib
• Remove its reference in .gitmodules
• Remove the package directory from .git/modules/lib/

Setup a fresh install

Just run: git submodule update --init --recursive

Summary

Hopefully this post has given you ideas on managing your packages in Emacs without a package manager. While the existing set of package managers in the Emacs ecosystem are great, I prefer this approach due to its simplicity.