Re: Geeze, I might try Linux after all... (not too off-tpic I hope)

["Alan Stone" <software.list.1es9s@gmail.com>]

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Thanks for your extensive comments Aditya. It's (finally) *much* clearer
now.

> Now you have two options: Either isolate minimal context from the one
> provided by the distribution, or make them co-exist. Isolating them is
> easy, the minimals even come with a script "setuptex" which does that. So,
> you just source setuptex before running context. If you want minimals and
> distribution tex to coexits, things are a bit tricky. You need to
> understand how the tex distribution works, which is an intangled (for the
> want of a better word) mess.

I'll take the isolation option then.

A question about the minimals...

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Minimals
mentions<http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ConTeXt_Minimals%20mentions>
"The
Minimals are an attempt to provide the same functionality as the
current Pragma's
minimal ConTeXt distributions <http://www.pragma-ade.com/download-1.htm> in
the zip files."

What's the difference (in provided functionalities) between the
contextgarden minimals and the pragma ones ?

Alan


On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:
> Yes. If you do not need latex, the safest thing to not install anything
> tex related from your distribution and only install the minimals from the
> garden. (You need to update using the mechanism provided by the minimals,
> and not ctxtools).
>
> The trouble with this is two-fold. First, you may need to use latex, and
> second, many packages on linux require tex, so you get a tex from the
> distribution also.
>
> Now you have two options: Either isolate minimal context from the one
> provided by the distribution, or make them co-exist. Isolating them is
> easy, the minimals even come with a script "setuptex" which does that. So,
> you just source setuptex before running context. If you want minimals and
> distribution tex to coexits, things are a bit tricky. You need to
> understand how the tex distribution works, which is an intangled (for the
> want of a better word) mess.
>
> However, the more fundamental question is: why do you need to update tex
> manually, why doesn't the distribution update tex frequently. Part of the
> reason is that it did not need to. Before luatex and xetex, tex binaries
> got updated occasionally. So, a periodic update of the binaries was good
> enough. As for macro packages, the biggest component is LaTeX, and LaTeX
> core is updated *very* slowly. So, again a periodic update was good
> enough.
>
> ConTeXt somehow spoils the party by adding features at an alarmingly fast
> rate. So, if you want to use new features you must update. So, someone
> needs to package everything for the distribution so that all users can
> frequently update context.
>
> Currently the only distribution that does that is Debian. Norbert Preining
> maintains a .deb for context macros which is updated fairly regularly. So,
> if you are on a debian based system, you can use Norbert's context
> package, and have a fairly recent context (~1-2 months old) distribution.
> For most cases this would work, unless you want to test the latest
> features.
>
>
>> Side-question: "But if you happen to update TL package" - what does TL
>> stand for ?
>
> Texlive. Currently TUG (Tex User group) releases a DVD each year
> containing the recent copy of all tex/latex/context packages and all
> binaries needed to run tex and friends on Windows, linux and mac. These
> days, most linux distributions use texlive as a source of tex packages
> that they include.
>
> Aditya
>
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If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
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archive  : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
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