Installation blues

Installation blues

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

Hi!

I think ConTeXt looks like a great package, and I've thought so for
quite some time -- but I haven't been able to install it :I

I tried a while back to install it with MiKTeX, but gave up after a
while. I recently tried again, but after getting things in place (not
an easy thing), I got an error message from pdetex because it didn't
understand an option supplied by texexec. Oh, well, I thought, and put
it on the back-burner again.

Suddenly I remembered a phrase from the installation manual: "When you
are using teTeX or derived distributions, you can usually stick to the
regular updates [...]". After investigated, I realised that this meant
that ConTeXt was included in teTeX -- and that fpTeX was a Windows
port. Yay!

The installation of fpTeX went without any problems (really a great
distribution), but using ConTeXt still wasn't as easy as I would like.
(I still haven't been able to make it work.) First of all, the
texexec.exe included (which is basically runperl.exe, I guess) doesn't
accept spaces in the directory name, and since the default
installation location is in "C:\Program Files\..." that is definitely
a problem. I moved it (and texexec.pl) somewhere else, as well as
copying texexec.rme to a texexec.ini in the same location (why isn't
this done by default?).

Now I am able to run texexec, but for some reason I get an error from
pdfeTeX... It can't find my tex files... Even when I run it without
texexec on a file in the current directory (e.g. test.tex) I get the
error message

! I can't find file `test.tex'.

What could be the problem now?

(If this question belongs on the pdftex list instead, or perhaps even
a separate fpTeX list, I apologise.)

--
Magnus Lie Hetland                                  The Anygui Project
http://hetland.org                                  http://anygui.org

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

Hi Magnus,

I had exactly the same problems recently when I wanted to upgrade from my
existing old ConTeXt setup to an fpTeX installation from the TeXLive CD.

The default path of c:\program files\... gave me severe stomach ache and
some heart flutters as well.
In autoexec.bat this became c:\progra~1\.. etcetera. Nothing was found
because it wasn't where fpTeX expected it to be.

I re-installed it (first hand-deleted the previous installation) and then
manually chose c:\TeXLive\ as installation path instead of the default.

This helped tremendously.

After that there were only minor glitches, the only big one was installing
"my" font but an expert helped me solve that and most users won;t have that
problem at all. Anotherw as that some programs installed from the WWW were
not on their specified locations anymore. That was the case for WinEdt which
is worthwile to find and install from http://www.winedt.com/ -- it is not
only and editor but it can be used as ready-to-run commander for the fpTeX
installation (only the button for ConTeXt is not built in right away).

Let us know how you're doing! I want to document my own installation better
and do the same install (maybe tomorrow) on my other PC so I'll get a bit of
routine.

Good luck!  Frans

----- Original Message -----
From: "Magnus Lie Hetland" <magnus@hetland.org>
To: "Context Mailing List" <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 12:49 AM
Subject: Installation blues

> Hi!
>
> I think ConTeXt looks like a great package, and I've thought so for
> quite some time -- but I haven't been able to install it :I
>
> I tried a while back to install it with MiKTeX, but gave up after a
> while. I recently tried again, but after getting things in place (not
> an easy thing), I got an error message from pdetex because it didn't
> understand an option supplied by texexec. Oh, well, I thought, and put
> it on the back-burner again.
>
> Suddenly I remembered a phrase from the installation manual: "When you
> are using teTeX or derived distributions, you can usually stick to the
> regular updates [...]". After investigated, I realised that this meant
> that ConTeXt was included in teTeX -- and that fpTeX was a Windows
> port. Yay!
>
> The installation of fpTeX went without any problems (really a great
> distribution), but using ConTeXt still wasn't as easy as I would like.
> (I still haven't been able to make it work.) First of all, the
> texexec.exe included (which is basically runperl.exe, I guess) doesn't
> accept spaces in the directory name, and since the default
> installation location is in "C:\Program Files\..." that is definitely
> a problem. I moved it (and texexec.pl) somewhere else, as well as
> copying texexec.rme to a texexec.ini in the same location (why isn't
> this done by default?).
>
> Now I am able to run texexec, but for some reason I get an error from
> pdfeTeX... It can't find my tex files... Even when I run it without
> texexec on a file in the current directory (e.g. test.tex) I get the
> error message
>
> ! I can't find file `test.tex'.
>
> What could be the problem now?
>
> (If this question belongs on the pdftex list instead, or perhaps even
> a separate fpTeX list, I apologise.)
>
> --
> Magnus Lie Hetland                                  The Anygui Project
> http://hetland.org                                  http://anygui.org

Re: Installation blues

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

Frans Goddijn <frans@goddijn.com>:
>
> Hi Magnus,
> 
> I had exactly the same problems recently when I wanted to upgrade from my
> existing old ConTeXt setup to an fpTeX installation from the TeXLive CD.

:)

> The default path of c:\program files\... gave me severe stomach ache and
> some heart flutters as well.
> In autoexec.bat this became c:\progra~1\.. etcetera. Nothing was found
> because it wasn't where fpTeX expected it to be.

Yeah; I guess that's problematic. I'm not sure whether that's the
problem now (since the "not found" tex file is in a directory without
spaces in its path); also, I have never had this problem with MiKTeX
(also in C:\Program Files\...). In fact, the pdfetex included in
MiKTeX works just fine while then one included in TeXLive (fpTeX)
can't find the specified source file. (On the other hand, the one
supplied with MiKTeX doesn't recognise the switches used by texexec...
<sigh>).

> I re-installed it (first hand-deleted the previous installation) and then
> manually chose c:\TeXLive\ as installation path instead of the default.
> 
> This helped tremendously.

Hm... It would help with the texexec problem, of course, but that
seems to be solved already (more or less). Do you think it will help
with my pdfetex too?

[About winedt]

I'll take a look at that. (I'm an avid emacs/vi user so I might not
use ut for editing, but you never know ;)

> installation (only the button for ConTeXt is not built in right away).

Any easy way of adding that? (I would actually like to use the
command-line version, but...)

> Let us know how you're doing!

Sure :)

> I want to document my own installation better and do the same
> install (maybe tomorrow) on my other PC so I'll get a bit of
> routine.

Sounds good. Having ConTeXt running "out of the box" (through some
TeX distribution, of course) seems very useful.

If I can't get it to work, I guess I'll try with an RPM or two on my
Linux machine <wink>.

> Good luck!  Frans

Thanks...

--
Magnus Lie Hetland                                  The Anygui Project
http://hetland.org                                  http://anygui.org

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

> I'm not sure whether that's the problem now
> (since the "not found" tex file is in a directory
> without spaces in its path);

you did (not forget to) run mktexlsr ?

> Do you think it will help
> with my pdfetex too?

That's what I run here...

> [About winedt]
>  installation (only the button for ConTeXt is not built in right away).
>
> Any easy way of adding that? (I would actually like to use the
> command-line version, but...)

I used the command line version also but since I was using WinEdt and he TeX
/ LaTeX / dvips et cetera menu was there I wanted to add the ConTeXt menu as
well..

I did it like this:

I click Options - Menu Setup and then I doubleclick "&Tools"

Then I do "Insert" and call the tool to be inserted "&ConTeXT

The rest of the menu to fill in:

For 'utility' fill in the path to your texexec.exe, in my case (including
the "%...%"marks):
c:\TeXLive\bin\win32\texexec.exe "%N%T"

"Caption" has the word 'ConTeXt'
"Start in" has %P
at "requires file" it has %P\%N.tex
and I will copy the "Start in" and "Requires File" settings from above.
chose one icon as "Toolbar Icon", another as Menu Icon and for instance F9
as shortcut
tag these options: "save folder to start in", "requires document",
"requires opened file",
Then I press "OK" twice, I select a texfile that I normally compile using
ConTeXt... and it compiles when I F9 !
If this works fine, choose options-->configurations->backup to save these
settings.

Regards,

Frans

Re: Installation blues

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

Frans Goddijn <frans@goddijn.com>:
>
> > I'm not sure whether that's the problem now
> > (since the "not found" tex file is in a directory
> > without spaces in its path);
> 
> you did (not forget to) run mktexlsr ?

Actually, no. (I can't have read the installation docs well enough;
where does it say I have to run this -- and what is it?)

When I try to run it now, it crashes (i.e. I get a Windows dialogue
complaining about that it did something illegal). Not much help in
that, I guess.

> > Do you think it will help with my pdfetex too?
> 
> That's what I run here...

Yeah; I just meant that the path thing sounded unrelated to my pdfetex
problem (although it would fix the runperl problem).

[snipped instructions about context button]

Thanks!

> 
> Regards,
> 
> Frans

--
Magnus Lie Hetland                                  The Anygui Project
http://hetland.org                                  http://anygui.org

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

> > you did (not forget to) run mktexlsr ?
>
> Actually, no. (I can't have read the installation docs well enough;
> where does it say I have to run this -- and what is it?)

I think it's one of those things that are considered to be known so widely
that it's not mentioned anywhere at all... :-)

It's the program that updates files in several directories with complete
listing of all paths and files in them so any file is found very quickly and
no program needs to do a long search through lots of directory trees. If a
recently added file is not found than it's mostly because mktexlsr of the
linux couterpart texhash hasn't been run.

> Yeah; I just meant that the path thing sounded
> unrelated to my pdfetex
> problem (although it would fix the runperl problem).

On my laptop the installation in c:\program files\... guaranteed that
nothing worked and only after I reinstalled in c:\TeXLive was I saved from
these path / not found errors..

good luck!

Frans

Re: Installation blues

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

Frans Goddijn <frans@goddijn.com>:
>
> > I'm not sure whether that's the problem now
> > (since the "not found" tex file is in a directory
> > without spaces in its path);
> 
> you did (not forget to) run mktexlsr ?

Hm. The install-wizard seems to do something like this:

  "Rebuild ls-R databases"

Or?

--
Magnus Lie Hetland                                  The Anygui Project
http://hetland.org                                  http://anygui.org

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

-----> > you did (not forget to) run mktexlsr ?
>
> Hm. The install-wizard seems to do something like this:
>
>   "Rebuild ls-R databases"
>
> Or?

That's it. And after you change anything like move texexec.exe it's good (of
just safe) to run mktexlsr again. On the other hand I don't understand why
mktexlsr's sister "kpsewhich" can't see where some files are, for instance
when I search "kpsewhich texexec.exe" the response is zero... even if it IS
there.

so there will always be riddles left over after all works fine :-)

Re: Installation blues

[Fabrice Popineau]

* Magnus Lie Hetland <magnus@hetland.org> writes:

> with MiKTeX (also in C:\Program Files\...). In fact, the pdfetex
> included in MiKTeX works just fine while then one included in
> TeXLive (fpTeX) can't find the specified source file. 

I don't think so. From this point of view, there is no difference :
spaces in directories names are not a problem for quite a long time
now.

However I must admit that I have not check runperl against this
condition, but that's the first time I hear of this problem. I'll fix
it as needed.

On the other hand, the next version of the perl scripts will be
compiled with ActiveState's perl compiler, so you will get true
executables.

Fabrice

Re[2]: Installation blues

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Sunday, March 17, 2002 Fabrice Popineau wrote:

FP> On the other hand, the next version of the perl scripts will be
FP> compiled with ActiveState's perl compiler, so you will get true
FP> executables.

Doesn't this increase their size?

-
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Re[2]: Installation blues

[Daniel Pittman]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
> Sunday, March 17, 2002 Fabrice Popineau wrote:
> 
> FP> On the other hand, the next version of the perl scripts will be
> FP> compiled with ActiveState's perl compiler, so you will get true
> FP> executables.
> 
> Doesn't this increase their size?

Not significantly, and the increase in reliability is /so/ worthwhile
that it should outweigh the fairly insignificant size increase.

The Perl core is a shared library, also, which actually /reduces/ the
size of the in-memory image a little. :)

This was done at my last place-of-employ because we faced exactly the
sort of problems that giving runperl.exe and Perl scripts to customers
faces -- that Windows is utterly, totally awful at dealing with such
things.

        Daniel

-- 
All television is children's television.
        -- Richard P. Adler

Re[4]: Installation blues

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Sunday, March 17, 2002 Daniel Pittman wrote:

DP> The Perl core is a shared library, also, which actually /reduces/ the
DP> size of the in-memory image a little. :)

Oh, fine :-)

--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Installation blues

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

Fabrice Popineau <Fabrice.Popineau@supelec.fr>:
>
> * Magnus Lie Hetland <magnus@hetland.org> writes:
> 
> > with MiKTeX (also in C:\Program Files\...). In fact, the pdfetex
> > included in MiKTeX works just fine while then one included in
> > TeXLive (fpTeX) can't find the specified source file. 
> 
> I don't think so. From this point of view, there is no difference :
> spaces in directories names are not a problem for quite a long time
> now.

I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't think so". The error message I
get from pdfetex is that it can't find the file.

> However I must admit that I have not check runperl against this
> condition, but that's the first time I hear of this problem. I'll fix
> it as needed.

It's not a new problem -- I god the same problem the last time I tried
(a year or two ago). runperl simply uses the part of the path _after_
the space in the path name. It may be a perl problem, of course --
that it runs the last "token" on the command line; but if runperl
escaped whitespace properly, that ought not be a problem... (Note that
I'm using cygwin, if that matters at all.)

> On the other hand, the next version of the perl scripts will be
> compiled with ActiveState's perl compiler, so you will get true
> executables.

Sounds good. One less hurdle to conquer during installation :)

(BTW: I think fpTeX looks absolutely wonderful -- I didn't mean to
sound negative...)

> Fabrice

--
Magnus Lie Hetland                                  The Anygui Project
http://hetland.org                                  http://anygui.org

Re: Installation blues

[Fabrice Popineau]

* Magnus Lie Hetland <magnus@hetland.org> writes:

> I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't think so". The error message
> I get from pdfetex is that it can't find the file.

I mean that miktex and fptex should be equivalent from the point of
view of spaces in directories names.

> It's not a new problem -- I god the same problem the last time I

Well, sorry because it looks like a real bug then. I would like to
have heard about it sooner.

> (BTW: I think fpTeX looks absolutely wonderful -- I didn't mean to
> sound negative...)

No problem, I know that all this stuff is far from perfect ;-)

Fabrice

Re: Installation blues

[Hans Hagen]

At 01:07 AM 3/16/2002 +0100, Frans Goddijn wrote:

>not on their specified locations anymore. That was the case for WinEdt which
>is worthwile to find and install from http://www.winedt.com/ -- it is not
>only and editor but it can be used as ready-to-run commander for the fpTeX
>installation (only the button for ConTeXt is not built in right away).
>
>Let us know how you're doing! I want to document my own installation better
>and do the same install (maybe tomorrow) on my other PC so I'll get a bit of
>routine.

In the beta zip there are conedt.ini and conedt.gui which you can copy to 
the winedt paths and rename to win*.*; Can be a starting point for 
configuring winedt.

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   fall-back web server: 
www.pragma-ade.nl
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

Hans wrote:

> In the beta zip there are conedt.ini and 
> conedt.gui which you can copy to the 
> winedt paths and rename to win*.* 
> Can be a starting point for configuring 
> winedt.

What beta? I just got cont-tmf from
http://www.pragma-ade.com/beta.htm
but I can't find conedt.gui and conedt.ini there!

I would like to see how it works... 

Regards,

Frans

Re: Installation blues

[Hans Hagen]

At 07:24 PM 3/19/2002 +0100, Frans Goddijn wrote:
>Hans wrote:
>
> > In the beta zip there are conedt.ini and
> > conedt.gui which you can copy to the
> > winedt paths and rename to win*.*
> > Can be a starting point for configuring
> > winedt.
>
>What beta? I just got cont-tmf from
>http://www.pragma-ade.com/beta.htm
>but I can't find conedt.gui and conedt.ini there!
>
>I would like to see how it works...

isn't in in /context/data ?

Hans

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   fall-back web server: 
www.pragma-ade.nl
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

I looked again and searched carefully but found only conedt.ini and not
conedt.gui (in \context\data in the cont-tmf.zip)

Where can I find conedt.gui?

Regards, Frans

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hans Hagen" <pragma@wxs.nl>
> In the beta zip there are conedt.ini and conedt.gui which
> you can copy to the winedt paths and rename to win*.*
> Can be a starting point for configuring winedt.

Re: Installation blues

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Saturday, March 16, 2002 Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:

MLH> Hi!

MLH> I think ConTeXt looks like a great package, and I've thought so for
MLH> quite some time -- but I haven't been able to install it :I

MLH> I tried a while back to install it with MiKTeX, but gave up after a
MLH> while. I recently tried again, but after getting things in place (not
MLH> an easy thing), I got an error message from pdetex because it didn't
MLH> understand an option supplied by texexec. Oh, well, I thought, and put
MLH> it on the back-burner again.

I can only help you with the MiKTeX install (I'm a
ConTeXt-on-MiKTeX user :-)).

First thing: ABSOLUTELY DON'T use the ConTeXt that comes with
MiKTeX. It's outdated and the non-TeX part is badly implemented.
Rather, grab the latest beta from www.pragma-pod.nl or from the
FTP mirror ftp://ftp.wau.nl/pub/pragma/context/beta (the name of
the file is cont-tmf.zip).

Unpack the zip on the LOCAL TeX/MF tree, preserving directory
structure (the .zip is TDS-structured so it will plug in nicely
with whatever else you have there.)

Refresh the filename database.

Navigate to \localtexmf\context\perltk and unpack runperl.exe; copy
it to texexec.exe, texutil.exe and so on and so forth for each
Perl script. (BTW you can also use it for your own Perl scripts.)

Add the path to \localtexmf\context\perltk to your system path
(editing your autoexec.bat if your on Win9x/WinME, setting the
appropriate variable in the Control Panel in WinNT/Win2K/WinXP).

Edit \localtexmf\context\perltk\texexec.ini (if it's not there,
copy texexec.rme to texexec.ini and edit the .ini). FWIW, the
miktex part is set thus in my system:

for  miktex  set  TeXExecutable     to  pdfetex
for  miktex  set  TeXVirginFlag     to  --initialize
for  miktex  set  TeXPassString     to  --alias=context --terminal=oem --enable-write18
for  miktex  set  TeXBatchFlag      to  --interaction=batchmode 
for  miktex  set  MpToTeXExecutable to  mptotex
for  miktex  set  MpVirginFlag      to  --initialize
for  miktex  set  MpPassString      to  --alias=mpost --terminal=oem
for  miktex  set  MpBatchFlag       to  
% should be --interaction=batchmode but MiKTeX 2.1 does not support it!

for  miktex  set  TeXFormatFlag     to  --undump=
for  miktex  set  MpFormatFlag      to  --undump=

Finally, find your local copy of the miktex.ini file
(\localtexmf\miktex\config\miktex.ini) and in the [ConTeXt]
section add AT LEAST the following line:

pool_size=1000000

I also added:

write18 = enable

just in case I forget to use --enable-write18 in the texexec.ini
file.

--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Installation blues

[Frans Goddijn]

PS:
If I rename conedt.ini to WinEdt.ini (in version 5.3, most recent build)
then I get an error on screen about a corrupted setup...

> I looked again and searched carefully but found only conedt.ini and not
> conedt.gui (in \context\data in the cont-tmf.zip)
>
> Where can I find conedt.gui?
>
> Regards, Frans
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Hans Hagen" <pragma@wxs.nl>
> > In the beta zip there are conedt.ini and conedt.gui which
> > you can copy to the winedt paths and rename to win*.*
> > Can be a starting point for configuring winedt.