Update: Added (require ‘package) – thanks, Ryan!

By default, the Emacs 24 package manager (M-x package-list-packages) points to a small repository of Emacs packages. Want more? Phil Hagelberg added support for multiple repositories to package.el. There’s the original ELPA at http://tromey.com/elpa, and there’s a community package source called Marmalade that anyone can upload packages to. Add this to your ~/.emacs and evaluate it:

(require 'package)
;; Add the original Emacs Lisp Package Archive
(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("elpa" . "http://tromey.com/elpa/"))
;; Add the user-contributed repository
(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/"))

You should then be able to call M-x package-list-packages to browse and install Emacs packages.

If you don’t have Emacs 24 yet (and you might want to wait for the official release if you use things like BBDB), Phil suggests downloading package.el from the Emacs development tree. This version includes support for multiple repositories.

For even more Emacs goodness outside the package system, check out the Emacs mirror, which lists more than 2,900 packages available through Git.

Thanks to:

• Phil Hagelberg for the post about ELPA
• Jonas Bernoulli for the post about emacsmirror

2011-01-15 Sat 10:31