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

[Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>]

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Alan Stone wrote:

> Thanks Mojca.
>
>> If you are lucky, it puts the files where you want them to be, but
>> since every installation works its own way, it's hard to predict where
>> to put them;
>> ...
>> Of course you can. But if you happen to update TL package, your
>> additions will be destroyed. And you need to rebuild all the other
>> formats. It's not so harmful.
>>
>> Supposed to relates to "your system would be supposed to update its
>> own packages", but for ConTeXt it obviously doesn't do.
>> ...
>> If you destroy (overwrite) the old binary :) - if you dowload the
>> wrong binary, then you have neither working. Generally, it should work
>> OK.
>
> Caramba! Tricky, tricky stuff.
>
> FYI, http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Installation_hints mentions, under the
> "Updating" paragraph, (after calling ctxtools --updatecontext) "then you
> have to regenerate the format(s)...", while you wrote
>
>> All it does is:
>> - download the zip
>> - unzip it
>> - make the formats
>
> I wonder, for the record, ...
>
> Is there any (installation) process which enables ctxtools to update ConTeXt
> without risking to #@!&X% it up ?

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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