Spacemacs-on-Joule.md

+# Spacemacs
+
+Spacemacs is an Emacs configuration of friendly to users new to Emacs.
+
+## Requirements
+
+ - Emacs 26 recommended.  On Joule `/usr/bin/emacs` is 24.3.1, so recommend using an recent build of emacs.
+ - Spacemacs itself is a git repo of `$HOME/.emacs.d`
+
+## Setup .emacs.d
+
+Go to `[https://www.spacemacs.org/#](https://spacemacs.org)` and click on the INSTALL link.  Copy and paste the resulting command on Joule:
+
+```
+> git clone https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs ~/.emacs.d
+> cd ~/.emacs.d
+> git checkout develop
+```
+
+## Load Emacs module
+
+There is a compiled version of Emacs under `/nfs/home/public`:
+
+```
+> source /nfs/home/public/mmeredith/spack/share/spack/setup-env.sh
+> spack load emacs
+> emacs --version  # Should be GNU Emacs 26.3
+```
+
+## Run Emacs
+
+ - Run `emacs`.  
+ - Select either `vim` or `emacs` keybindings, your preference
+ - Select `standard distribution`
+ - Select completion framework `helm`
+ - Wait a minute or two for Spacemacs to install.
+ - Start editing (default uses Vim keybindings) 
+
+## Reset Configuration
+
+If your Spacemacs config gets corrupted, doing:
+
+```
+> rm ~/.spacemacs
+> git -C ~/.emacs.d clean -fdx
+```
+
+then the next time running `emacs` will bring the configuration back to a known state.
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