Emacs version in RHEL 6.1 is very outdated, 23.1 (which was released on July 2009). I needed a newer version to run Geiser at work, so after searching for the package in the typical places (rpmfind.net and rpm.pbone.net) and Google I decided to build my own one. For it, I just followed these instructions on how to build Source RPM packages and did some minor updates on the RPM spec file.

So, simply download emacs-23.3-1.el6.src.rpm and follow these instructions:

This will only create an rpmbuild directory in your home:

$ rpm -i emacs-23.3-1.el6.src.rpm

Install rpm-build if you don't have it, and build the Emacs RPMs:

$ cd $HOME/rpmbuild/SPECS
$ rpmbuild -ba emacs.spec

Finally, upgrade your old installed Emacs and happy hacking!

$ cd $HOME/rpmbuild/RPMS
$ sudo rpm -U emacs-23.3-1.el6.x86_64.rpm emacs-common-23.3-1.el6.x86_64.rpm