Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
Thanks to Thomas (and others), getting a fully functional TeXMF system
took as much as insert SUSE DVD, click button. In comparison, what's TeX
Live? A CD which contains a TeXMF system which runs off that CD? Very
useful for evaluating the software. I did that 15 years ago. Is
installing TL to hard disk more of the make-install insanity? Thanks but
no thanks. Other platforms? None here, so not exactly a draw-card. There
wasn't anything going for TL in the past (well for me).
The primary worth if TeXLive, to my mind, is not its
current instantiation as a CD or DVD, but in the fact
that it has a coherent and sustainable catalogue of
packages and collections. From these you can build
a set of Debian packages (done), or a set of of
RPMs (someone should try), or whatever, by writing
some scripts to read the XML control files.
If distributors can package up TL then it's fine, but currently tetex is
280MB and I expect distributors might be re-evaluating inclusion of it
if it jumps up by a lot. Would it be advisable/possible to split TL
somehow sensible?
thats exactly what I did about 10 years ago when
I started TL, into a more modular set of collections
than teTeX...
Can TL be turned into an rpm on-the-fly for disk
installation?
in theory, though it could be disk intensive
--
Sebastian Rahtz
Information Manager, Oxford University Computing Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
OSS Watch: JISC Open Source Advisory Service
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk
