There are other package installers and there is "autoload.el", bundled with emacs. Why use elinstall? Because: * It works with my-site-start (which I highly recommend) * It supports slash-style paths, like : (require 'emtest/testhelp/tagnames) * Unlike autoload.el, it can also set up load-path and Info-default-directory-list (that's like load-path for info files) * Unlike some other installers, it works with canonical loaddefs.el-style autoload files. * Unlike other installers, what you install doesn't have to be pre-packaged, and there are no restrictions on what means you can use to get the elisp files - elinstall doesn't care, it obeys the motto "do one thing well". But it also works well for packages. * Because internally it works in articulated stages, it's easier to hack and extend than autoload.el