If your platform is OS X and you’re an Emacser, Bozhidar Batsov has a nice post on setting up Emacs. He shows you how to get Emacs (if you don’t compile it yourself), how to set the path or alias so you can (also) use Emacs in a terminal, and how to get a dictionary installed for flyspell.
Sadly, proced doesn’t work on OS X but Batsov gives you an alternate utility that does some of the same things. He also mentions that the BSD ls command doesn’t have the same features that GNU ls does and that dired expects those capabilities. He shows how to get the GNU ls but I’ve never had any problem with just using the native ls. I think that Emacs detects that it’s not GNU ls and adds the missing bits.
Finally, he mentions the Dash utility, which is an OS X documentation browser. There is, of course, an Emacs interface. Dash is available from the App Store for free but will nag you occasionally to buy it. It’s only $19.99 so it’s worth rewarding the author for his work. You can check out its features in the App Store and try it for free so there’s no downside to looking into it.
If you’re using OS X, it’s worth checking out Batsov’s post even if you already have Emacs up and running.