Hello all!
I've just read the TeX page again after some time and found some things that might be done in a neater way. First of all one can omit the 'TEXMFVAR=path prog' constructs if 'prog-sys' (texconfig-sys, updmap-sys, etc.) instead of 'prog' is used. Also the configure switches '-exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin' can be substituted by '--disable-multiplatform'. Okay, these are changes that should be applied in any way. In what follows I'll try to argue about some more second (third?) orderish changes to the build instructions. The whole layout of the texmf-dirs that came into life with TeX-3.0 is listed in the INSTALL file, for convenience I'll quote the relevant part: > Quoted from: http://www.tug.org/tetex/tetex-src/INSTALL > > $prefix/share/texmf % variable runtime and configuration data > $prefix/share/texmf-dist % distributed tree with fonts, macros, ... > $prefix/share/texmf-local % for local additions > $prefix/share/texmf-config % system tree for modified configuration files > $prefix/share/texmf-var % system tree for cached variable runtime files > $HOME/texmf % user tree for added fonts and macros > $HOME/.texmf-config % user tree for modified configuration files > $HOME/.texmf-var % user tree for cached variable runtime files > $prefix/info % GNU style info manuals > $prefix/man % UNIX manual pages > $prefix/bin/$PLATFORM % binaries Currently, TeX is somewhat squeezed into $prefix/share/texmf and additions are also put there. Now what I want to express is a somewhat philosophical thing: - The tetex-texmf-3.0.tar.gz tarball (and tetex-texmfsrc-3.0.tar.gz too) should be unpack to '$prefix/share/texmf-dist' - Any additions (like fonts) should be made to '$prefix/share/texmf-local' - Configuration things can stay in $prefix/share/texmf The second thing is unfortunately not as straight-forward as it seems. It means creating a lot of directories and knowing about the structure and functioning of teTeX. Everytime I need/want to add a package to my TeX, it takes me some time to 'get it right'. Yes there are normally READMEs coming with the packages, but those are not always that helpful; so having a pointer to the needed instructions comes in handy. Therefore: - Provide a sample installation of a package (or point to the needed documentation on what goes where). Another thing that should be addressed is the impact of 'texconfig-sys font rw' as this will set write permission for certain directories within the texmf-trees. There are ways to work around this (like creating the needed fonts once and setting up a varfont directory for anything that was left out).[1] The instructions currently in the BLFS-book certainly work, but they are not exactely in line with the teTeX-philosophy as understand it (again, I might be wrong there). I am not sure if it worth to go through the hassle to follow that philosophy for BLFS, after all, if someone (like me ;)) doesn't like the way it's done, (s)he can always deviate from The Book. If you think it would be 'Nice Thing' to have for The Book I'll dive into the depths of teTeX a bit more and try to figure out (by checking with the tetex-devel list) if 'my' way of interpreting the philosophy is the official one. I am by no means a TeX-guru ;-) I am merely trying to use it in a decent way. Oh yeah, and I'll (try to) put together a more complete survey of a smart way to install TeX. So, what's the general opinion? Is it worthwhile to do this for the BLFS book? Is it necessary to provide a more detailed installation instruction on how the TeX-system is organized (it is not TeX From Scratch after all ;-)), hence to motivate why things are done in the way they are done? Would BLFS be happy with saying 'It works the way it is, for anything beyond that, read the documentation'? Any ideas from real TeX-gurus? Thanks for reading this :-) Cheers, Steffen [1] Actually, the philosphy applied to the directory layout and usage somewhat fires back to LFS with the texinfo-package (remember this 'make TEXMF=/usr/share/texmf install-tex' line? ;-)) -- I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life. -- Hobbes
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