Sometimes I just want to install stuff into emacs manually so I know what's going on. Here's a minimal setup to use emacs slime and connect to a swank server with a repl

I stick everything in the /opt directory. I'm using clojure 1.3.0-alpha3

1. git clone git://git.boinkor.net/slime.git

2. git clone https://github.com/technomancy/swank-clojure.git

3. setup emacs:

   (add-to-list 'load-path "/opt/clojure-mode")
   (require 'clojure-mode)
   
   (add-to-list 'load-path "/opt/slime")
   
   (eval-after-load "slime"
     '(progn
        (slime-setup '(slime-repl))))
   (require 'slime)

   (That last 'eval-after-load' bit is to enable the slime-repl. Recent versions of slime come without it enabled by default)

4. Go to your project directory and start the swank server:

   java -cp "lib/*:.:/opt/swank-clojure/src:/opt/clojure-1.3.0-alpha3/clojure.jar" clojure.main -e "(use 'swank.swank)(apply -main *command-line-args*)" /dev/null "$@"

5. In emacs, connect to swank server:

   M-x slime-connect