Bug#283955: /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf: please observe the policy

[frank@kuesterei.ch (Frank Küster)]

martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> wrote:

> However, I find it not acceptable, and I want to get rid of all
> files in /etc that require users to read comments instead of just
> editing away -- if they know what they are doing.

The user is not required to read that comment. In most cases, it will
workout quite well. And when it doesn't, she is shown a dialog, even
with a three-way-diff.

> Why can't texmf.cnf go to /var and texmf read it from there,
> ideally without a symlink so as to not confuse the user?

Because there are other users who argue "To configure TeX, I can edit
texmf.cnf everywhere. I want to be able to do that on Debian, too, and
not need to care about strange update scripts."

Furthermore, a common and generally very useful approach for editing
configuration files in a TeX system is to find the right file by doing

kpsewhich texmf.cnf

Currently, this gives /usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf which is a
symlink to /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf. In your setup, it would give
/var/lib/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf, people would edit it, and *bang*.

Things are different with updmap.cfg and fmtutil.cnf, because these
files are not general for TeX systems (not even for web2c-based
TeX-systems). Installation documentation for fonts, for example, will
usually be either wrong (e.g. by advising to edit /etc/texmf/updmap,
which no longer exists) or rather general.

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer