what is custom-set-variables and faces in my .emac

Question

this is in my .emacs can I mess with it or not?

(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
  ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
  ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 )
(custom-set-faces
  ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
  ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
  ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(better-fringes-bitmap ((t (:foreground "#00dd44"))))
 '(font-lock-string-face ((((class color) (min-colors 88) (background light)) (:foreground "#113355")))))

so far I am adding everything I want above these lines...

Answer 1

Don't add anything to these lines manually — your changes will be vanished by emacs on some events. Instead add custom variables with customize-set-variable and custom faces with set-face-attribute:

(customize-set-variable 'blink-cursor-mode nil)
(set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "DejaVu Sans Mono")

In order to customize face of some package one sometimes need to request the package first, and after that set its face:

(require 'mumamo)
(set-face-attribute 'mumamo-background-chunk-major nil :background nil)

Answer 2

These blocks are added by the customize interface, as Noufal pointed out. You can move them to a separate file, though, if you like.

Just add this to your ~/.emacs.d/init.el:

(setq custom-file "~/.emacs.d/custom.el")
(load custom-file)

or, if you're still using an old-fashioned ~/.emacs file:

(setq custom-file "~/.custom.el")
(load custom-file)

Answer 3

I don't really understand what this .emacs file does, but I do know that when I installed 16.04 I had problems in Emacs with fonts, and not recognising Cyrillic, so I removed .emacs as a trial, and the problems vanished.

Answer 4

These are lines added to the file when you use the customise system. They're generated when you use customize-*. By default, the customisation options are stored in the .emacs file. You don't usually edit these by hand. You have to use the customize-* commands to edit them.