Re: texexec

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 11:01 12/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>I've been a debian woody user for a long time, now,
>and the conclusion I eventually came to was this:
>
>   * debian's strict adherence to directory structure
>     conventions has made the tetex package difficult
>     to maintain, since it's split into many parts,
>     spread all over the filesystem.  (This is really
>     just an inference of mine.)

The nice thing about tex is that it is quite well organized (in its own 
tree) and splitting it up over many places makes it a pain to maintain; for 
instance, do the debian people offer extensive cleanup-remove scripts? I 
wonder how the tex community is supposed to provide support to users if all 
redistributers would change the tex tree organization to their needs.

>   * context has never worked for me in debian, and
>     submitting a bug report looks hopeless, given the
>     long length of the bug list.  I haven't checked
>     in a long time, though.

>   * I wasn't able to use the "equivs" package to get
>     the debian packaging system to accept my own tetex
>     installation, so I could not install, e.g., the
>     docbook-xsl-st package.

>   * finally, I settled on this: install the debian
>     tetex packages but don't use them directly.  Also
>     install teTeX from source in /opt, and set my
>     PATH so that when I say texexec I get the real
>     tetex and not debian's broken tetex.

what i do here is the following:

(1) when a new tex live arrives, i copy this to /tex/texmf
(2) i keep my local context + some fonts in /tex/texmf-local
(3) i put all new fonts (mostly commercial) in /tex/texmf-fonts
(4) i put all the binaries in /tex/texmf-linux/bin|web2c

(so, i also have texmf-mswin, texmf-darwin, etc)

if needed in project, i also have a /tex/texmf-project

I have set up texmf.cnf as well as cont-sys.tex set up in the texmf-local 
tree to enable metapost processing

Finally I get rid of all the os specific settings and hook these trees into 
the whole:

btw 1, in most cases i just use TEXROOT=/tex
btw 2, i also have a minimal 50 meg main texmf tree which makes tex run 
much faster

so, i use tex live (tetex,fptex) as basis and not the linux distributers 
alternative

# . setuptex
# mktexlsr
# texexec --make --alone

TEXROOT=/usr/local/tex
export TEXROOT

TEXMFMAIN=$TEXROOT/texmf
TEXMFLOCAL=$TEXROOT/texmf-local
TEXMFFONTS=$TEXROOT/texmf-fonts
TEXMFPROJECT=$TEXROOT/texmf-project
TEXMFOS=$TEXROOT/texmf-linux
VARTEXMF=$TEXROOT/texmf-var

export TEXMFMAIN
export TEXMFLOCAL
export TEXMFPROJECT
export TEXMFFONTS
export TEXMFOS
export VARTEXMF

PATH=$TEXMFOS/bin:$PATH
export PATH

HOMETEXMF=
export HOMETEXMF

# the next lines fail on dec alpha os's, so there you need
# to comment them (bug traced down by kees van marle/martin
# corrino)
#
# HOMETEXMF=/nonexist
# export HOMETEXMF

TEXMFCNF=$TEXROOT/texmf{-local,}/web2c
TEXMF='{$TEXMFOS,$TEXMFPROJECT,$TEXMFFONTS,$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFMAIN}'
TEXFORMATS=$TEXMFOS/web2c
TEXPOOL=$TEXFORMATS
MPPOOL=$TEXFORMATS

export TEXMFCNF
export TEXMF
export TEXFORMATS
export TEXPOOL
export MPPOOL



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                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
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