Is there a stable Emacs automated packaging system?

Question

I'm using Gnu Emacs on OSX, Windows, and Linux. Is there some command which can download and install packages (or .el files) automatically? I've seen there are some work-in-progress projects on the internet (after googling) but I was wondering if I was missing some awesome package manager out there that just works.

Answer 1

Yes, the Emacs development mailing list has a long discussion regarding integrating a package manager package.el into the next major release of Emacs: Integrating package.el. It automatically downloads and installs packages from the ELPA (Emacs Lisp Package Archive. Read the installation page to obtain the latest.

Answer 2

You could also try el-get. I handles installation of packages from ELPA, git, and apt-get among others.