On 1/6/07, Alexander Hansen wrote:
> On 1/6/07, kp.gores wrote:
> > hi,
> >
> > i switched from tetex (installed by gerben wierdas great i-installer)
> > to texlive. unfortunately fink only supports a system-tetex, but not
> > a "system-texlive". any help on getting fink to recognize texlive?
> > regards
> > kp
> >
>
> Current discussion has been in the direction of eliminating support
> for non-Fink TeX distros altogether.
Hello,
sorry for disturbing again. I really don't know that much about Fink
itself (I just know that I'm very thankful for it since it really
makes life much easier), but I use TeX (ConTeXt) a lot.
At the time when the first message arrived I didn't know yet that
Gerben announced end of his support (I didn't understand the hint
until a few days later).
Here are some of my thoughts:
- I have no idea for how long Gerben's distribution is still going to
be useful, but I'll keep using it unless/until there will be a better
alternative
- It might be that Gerben's distribution becomes really obsolete one
day, so a good and up-to-date alternative, such as
texlive/miktex-based TeX in fink might be needed anyway and would be
really welcome.
- If you intend to drop support for non-fink distributions of TeX,
please try to create a texlive-based alternative in fink first. The
tetex-based one is so old that it's almost useless to me. (I'm using
ConTeXt and I *really* need additions from May/August 2006 for
example. The same is true for most ConTeXt users.) Also, I'm not sure
if the following page is still relevant:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=xetex_fink
but I really don't want to follow it's instructions since XeTeX should
work out-of-the-box already.
- I have a feeling that some packages simply require too much when
they ask for TeX development files. I successfully compiled gnuplot on
windows/linux/mac, it only failed with fink since it wanted to have
some TeX developer files for some reason that I don't really
understand. When I compiled manually, everything went OK and kpathsea
developer files were not needed (perhaps I had worse functionality
because of that, I don't know, but I never really missed anything). On
the other hand, the new version of gnuplot would need pangocairo which
fink doesn't support and which is much more serious drawback than not
having a kpathsea header file installed.
I have a feeling that the main reason why most packages require TeX is
simply because it's used to generate documentation (I might be wrong
though) and one doesn't need TeX developer files for that. Any TeX
installation (as long as "pdflatex" works) should do in that case.
- In really short term, it would really help if texlive-based Gerben's
distribution could be supported as well.
- I don't understand (but I admit that I'm speculating a bit since I
don't know what's behind) why fink wants to have some TeX files at
hardcoded locations. TeX has kpathsea which was created for exactly
that reason - to be able to have files placed at "arbitrary"
locations. Would it be possible to make any use of that?
- If someone decides to create a texlive-based package, I'm
volunteering to prepare and maintain a package for ConTeXt (if someone
could offer me some help at the very beginning), which is usually
updated once or twice per week. Gerben's i-Installer (as well as
MikTeX, W32TeX and Debian) takes care of that.
I'm also ready to help on some other issues regarding texlive, but I'm
not experienced enough to take it over.
The situation has just been improved considerably in Debian, MikTeX's
developer is working on incorporating new versions of pdfTeX,
metapost, XeTeX, ... Also note that luaTeX (pdfTeX's successor) is on
its way and will probably be available in the middle of 2007. Having a
good & recent TeX distribution on Mac is and will be needed and
welcome.
As long as "eliminating support for non-Fink TeX distros altogether"
doesn't mean "users have to use that obsolete tetex distribution from
January 2005", I support that. But it has to be done "properly" and in
such a way that users will profit from that. I really don't want such
a thing as "fink's ancient TeX messing up with some new & usable TeX".
Thanks,
Mojca
(I'm really sorry for posting to a different list that the one where
message originated; I didn't want to cross-post and I thought that
fink-users was more appropriate than fink-beginners.)
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