Pierre Habouzit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > * delayed execution > * instantaneous execution (purges cache) > * instantaneous execution if an operation is pending, nothing else > (purge the cache). > > e.g. If a package uses tex to build some sort of documentation at > install time (I know it's stupid, but it's just an example ok?) then > the delayed operation of indexing the fonts has to be done before (thus > my third option).
More realistically (and actually happening), a package builds its TeX format file at install time, and includes some hardcoded font information into it. In practice, however, this hasn't been a problem for various reasons, and, more importantly, I don't think that running TeX is a candidate for delayed batch processing - it is *the* typical point where bugs show up, causing the format building to fail, and should stay associated with the package that needs the format. Registering the TeX fonts, on the other hand, is a good candidate for delayed execution: It takes long each time it is done, many packages do it in their postinst, and it will fail with the first package that is configured, no matter which of the multiple (newly) installed packages causes the bug. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich Debian Developer (teTeX)