TLDR: I really want to learn emacs, getting frustrated with the basics and seeking help. Can’t install use-package on my mac installation of emacs.

I’ve been using neovim for awhile but have been increasingly frustrated with not being able to understand how things work when they break down. Hoping to learn emacs for fun and maybe to even replace/improve my nvim workflows.

Things went well at first. I followed the tutorial and got used to some basic navigation as well as window and buffer navigation. I LOVE being able to `C-h` for functions, keys, and variables.

I decided it was time to start trying to configure things and installing packages. I’m not patient enough to watch 10 hours of system crafters videos and didn’t really want to buy Mastering Emacs, so I decided to do some googling and figure things out myself. I came across a guide with some basic starting points and was feeling good about things until I got to this part: https://medium.com/@suvratapte/configuring-emacs-from-scratch-use-package-c30382297877

I am completely unable to install use-package and that feels pretty defeating. I followed the instructions and the package was not found. I tried `package-refresh-contents` and found use-package-hydra use-package-chords and use-package-el-get. Can’t seem to find use-package.

After some googling I thought it might be that my mac-homebrew-installed version of emacs was missing TLS support, so I deleted it, pulled the emacs-mac repo, and installed it with no issues. Started up my new install and had to navigate the fact that my alt key was no longer bound and my command key was magically mapped to meta which I don’t want. It was really frustrating to run into this and have no idea how to C-h my way out of it. I managed to map alt to meta and map command to super, but not I can’t command-c any more which is an annoyance.

On top of this, I still can’t install use-package, the exact same thing happens. I deleted the part of my config that sets up melpa and used the instructions from their site. I confirmed using eww that I have TLS support working. I tried a number of commands from reddit and elsewhere and have not made any progress. I feel like I’m back in my vim config hopelessly adding lines to my config until it’s not broken.

Primarily I need help passing this hurdle so that I can try and set things up myself. It would also be super nice to understand why these things have been failing and how I can better use resources to fix issues like this in the future.