Thomas Esser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> While this makes sense for a single driver, I don't recommend this for
> complete systems like teTeX. People might be suprised if files get
> installed into their old system even though a new prefix was chosen.

But wouldn't that only be for those directories where --datadir
isn't passed down (as you explain in the paragraph quoted next),
and where no `make install' is done anyway?

[ from another followup: ]
> When configuring in libs, the --prefix parameter is not passed down,
> because it interacts with ncurses. We never "make install" in libs,
> so it does not hurt, not to have the right prefix parameter.
> A side effect of that manipulation, however, is that the check for
> the texmf tree fails in libs. While this is annoying, it is completely
> harmless.
> 

Hmm, without this knowledge, that warning would make me pretty
nervous as well (and I don't find it too reassuring either that
the default location is `NONE/share/texmf' - quite the contrary,
I would suspect there's an error in my configuration.)

If there's no other way to shut off this warning, maybe it would
be more user friendly to have a *huge* info printout for this
right at the beginning, e.g.:

*************************** INFO ***************************
Please expect warnings of the form

configure: warning: The main texmf tree was not found.
[...]
  Winging it by using the default location
  NONE/share/texmf.

in the `libs' subdirectory. These warnings are completely
harmless; the reason that they are occuring is that due to an
incompatibility with ncurses, the --prefix parameter isn't passed
into that subdirectory.
*************************** INFO ***************************

> The check in texk/kpathsea / texk/web2c, however should find the texmf
> tree in $prefix/share/texmf or $prefix/texmf.

My remark was also about what happens when --prefix is not
specified at all.  Shouldn't the default configure be able to
find an existing texmf tree in this case? With RH 7.0/7.2 and
Slackware 8.0, where the texmf tree is located by default in
`/usr/share/texmf', I always need to specify --prefix or
--datadir explicitly, otherwise none of the configures (in
toplevel or any subdirectory) will find the existing tree. (But
IIRC it was always like that, not only with the newest beta).

-- 
Stefan Ulrich

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