How do I install multiple versions of sw (emacs)

[Andreas D. Skjervold]

I have a hp-ux 11.00 system with emacs 20.3 installed. (in /opt/emacs)
Now some of my users want 20.7 installed, but still like to access the old version.
How do I accomplish this?
Will running swinstall straight forward overwrite the old version?

[Rainer_1 · Accepted solution]

you could rename the old version

mv /opt/emacs /opt/emacs_20.3

and then swinstall your 20.7 version with will be under /opt/emacs

To get the old version user must use /opt/emacs_20.3/bin/emacs

[CHRIS_ANORUO]

If you install on the newer version of 2.07, definitely it will over write the older version 2.03. What you might do is try installing on a different directory if it will not default to the /opt directory on installation.

[Stefan Schulz]

As the depot files are actually tar files, you could extract them "by hand" and copy the necessary files to any location you like.

But of course you cant use swlist or swremove with this "by hand" installation.

[Darrel Louis]

Before you start with the installation of the new version make an copy of the old one, emacs20.3

But aren't there any libraries linked which are version specific.
Check that out, otherwise the old-version still won't work.

[Andreas D. Skjervold]

Darrel: Thanks, I checked the libraries and you're right, I got an error stating some missing libraries, but now, somehow the message has disapered...
I'll just wait for the users to complain and be prepared to reverse the operation.

Thanks everyone!