[beta-3.0] new hierarchy texmf-dist
Hi all,
one of the main new things in tetex-texmf ist that, according to it's
documentation, it should be unpacked in the new hierarchy
$sharedir/texmf-dist. The old $sharedir/texmf is kept and used for the
configuration files and some stuff I didn't investigate, and for
"everything else", as explained in ANNOUNCE:
,----
| * new default setup: texmf-dist holds the texmf tree as distributed;
| everything else goes elsewhere. So, the installed texmf-dist can
| easily be replaced with a new version
`----
I don't really see the point of this, because $TEXMFLOCAL is continued
to be supported, and it should be possible to omit this tree. I have
asked on the tetex-pretest mailinglist about the rationale of this, but
then I had the idea that it might not be so bad:
If binary packages that come from tetex-base's source install into
texmf-dist, and all other debian packages install into texmf (which is
first in the kpathsea search), then it would be possible for packages to
update individual TeX files without conflicting with tetex-base. One
could even implement a "texupdate-ctan" package that gets CTAN packages
on request, builds a minimal Debian package and installs them in texmf.
The question is whether we want this. It will for sure make bugtracking
much harder. On the other hand it might be a cool thing for users, and
help a little against the drawback that comes from the combination of
CTAN being a "moving target" and both Debian and tetex having rather
slow release cycles.
Comments?
--
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
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