Dear Mojca, Thanks for the update about your concerns.
When the Fink project was young, we had a number of "system- something" packages which allowed Fink to use pieces of software which were installed in other ways. Each of these caused a fair amount of trouble, since Fink is a tightly integrated system and changes in those external pieces of software often had unanticipated consequences for Fink. The "system-something" packages were designed to test for particular items which not only would be used by Fink, but also would signal whether or not the external package had changed. The only remaining packages of this type are system-tetex and system- ghostview. Attempting to keep these things in sync with Fink has been a big headache for a long time, and I believe that there is no longer a reason to try. (One of the big reasons in the early days had to do with the size of a TeX installation and the argument that one shouldn't have to install TeX twice, but by now that size looks more manageable compared with both current hard disk sizes and other software packages.) However, before making any change I would like to be sure that there aren't any negative impacts on users. Let me try to analyze the situation. First, as you surmise, Fink needs a TeX installation for its own purposes (mainly to create documentation for other packages, but also, obviously, if a user chooses to install Fink's teTeX package for daily use). If we drop system-tetex, then even users who wish to run an external version of TeX will be 'forced' to install Fink's TeX. Second, it is hard to use an external-to-Fink TeX because Fink puts / sw/bin at the head of the PATH. (This is one of the main advantages of the current system-tetex package, which allows an external TeX to serve in place of Fink's TeX.) However, any user can adjust his or her PATH to put /usr/local/bin in front of /sw/bin, which should solve that problem. It's not a great solution, at the moment, because it isn't easy or automatic. But we've discussed making a change in Fink which would let the user, as an option, automatically put the Fink directories at the end of the path instead of at the beginning. Third, your proposal to introduce a fink texlive package as an alternative to tetex is an interesting one. I personally don't have time to do this, but I'm willing to cooperate with a texlive package maintainer (as I already cooperate with the ptex package maintainer -- ptex is the Japanese version of tetex). Let me suggest that you try out the method (suggested above) of combining your external TeXLive installation with fink's tetex, putting /usr/local/bin at the front of your PATH, and let us know how it goes. (The details of how to do this will depend on whether you are using bash, tcsh, or some other shell, but basically you want to edit your .profile or .tcshrc so that *after* the fink /sw/bin/init.(c)sh file is loaded, you adjust the path to put /usr/local/bin first.) -- Dave On Jan 8, 2007, at 6:29 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote: > 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.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. 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