Re: [TeX-music] Musixtex package

[Dirk Laurie]

Christof Biebricher skryf:
> 
> More of a problem are the executables. I suggest that one offers 
> binaries for windows and linux-i*86; for all other systems one
> has to add the program sources for compiling, if possible, as C programs.
> After we agree about the new package, it would be possible to replace
> the complicated and then obsolete installation instructions and clean
> up the now rather complex software catalogue.
> 
I recently switched to Ubuntu Linux, a Debian variant.  MusiXteX,
musixlyr, PMX and M-Tx are available packages and to install them was 
simple.  If you say "aptitude -r install m-tx", everything is installed 
in one go.  If you have only one functional finger, you can even do
it by selectng menu items from a GUI.

Other Linux distributions offer similar features of installing 
recommended packages, although as far as I know, Debian is the only 
one that has our packages as part of the official release.

What is my point?  Basically, that any user sophisticated enough
to get useful results from a generic linux-i*86 would not need
the combined package, and that easy solutions for some distros
are already available.  Megalithic packages offering everything
are a bit out of fashion in the Linux world.  Maybe it makes sense
in the Windows world - I would not know.

Dirk
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Re: [TeX-music] Musixtex package

[Christof Biebricher]

Dear all:

in my opinion, musixtex and the preprocessors are
mature and stable software. While there will be maintenance
releases in the future, it is unlikely that major changes
will take place. On the other hand, installation and documentation
are outdated and an obstacle to the propagation of the software.

It is unlikely and not advisable that newcomers will start with plain musixtex,
they should rather use the comfortable preprocessors. However, these must still
be installed separately and I heard of several unexperienced people 
that were unable to install them. Furthermore, the distributors
of TeX systems
(mikTeX, teTeX) had often outdated packages that made it necessary
to install musixTeX on a local directory. In my opinion, it would
improve installation of the package considerably if we offered to
CTAN a complete and updated package that contains all necessary 
components for typesetting music, including the preprocessors.
They can then integrate fully into the main TeX directory system.
The benefits are obvious: for most operating systems, installation 
would be done automatically as a
package of TeX and users would not have to bother.

First of all, this requires that all authors of the different new 
components agree with this policy. 
Secondly, we should decide which components should additionally go
into the package. All additional macro files
offered in WIMA are short and can be incorporated into the macro package
without problem. There are already some special macros
in the musixtex collection which are rarely used. On the other hand, there
are some separate macro packages which are called in most calls to
musixtex, e.g. musixmad, which could preferentially be incorporated 
into musixtex.tex.

More of a problem are the executables. I suggest that one offers 
binaries for windows and linux-i*86; for all other systems one
has to add the program sources for compiling, if possible, as C programs.
After we agree about the new package, it would be possible to replace
the complicated and then obsolete installation instructions and clean
up the now rather complex software catalogue.

Your opinion, please.

Christof



-- 
Prof. Dr. Christof K. Biebricher
Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
D-37070 Göttingen
Tel: +49 (551) 201 1442
FAX: +49 (551) 201 1578
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