Re: Providing an up-to-date TeX system for etch: teTeX, TeXlive, or what?
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 13:59 +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
> Therefore, I think we should try harder to get the default TeX system
> for users more recent.
ACK, that is an important goal.
> I see three possibilities:
>
> 1. Update selected programs in tetex-bin (pdfTeX, xdvi [1]), don't
> touch the rest, especially not the TEXMF trees
pdftex is an obvious candidate for updates. Have there been any
important changes to xdvi? Or do you expect them? I know that there have
been chages to MetaPost since teTeX 3.0 has been released (ie,
development has started again), but I don't know how important these
changes are.
> 2. Decide that TeXlive be the default TeX system in Debian, and keep
> teTeX only for package building purposes for etch.
This would leave people maintaining TeX using Debian packages /and/
actively using TeX themselves in an unfortunate situation. Either they
use the TeX system that is used on the buildds, or they use the system
that is recommended for actual work.
> 3. An intermediate solution: Create the possibility that updated
> binaries from TeXlive can be used with teTeX, e.g. using
> alternatives.
>
>
> The advantages and disadvantages of these solutions, as I can see them
> currently, are:
>
> 1. + Automatic updates of all systems that have TeX installed
> + The amount of work can be controlled well, hopefully
> - No updates of TEXMF trees
We could change the order in TEXMFDIST and advice people to install the
necessary texlive packages.
> - duplication of work, we already have TeXlive
Would it be possible if tetex-bin would not buid/install pdftex.
Instead, tetex-bin would depend on texlive-pdftex-bin, or whatever it is
called.
[...]
> [1] what about bibtex8? Why is it in texlive, but not in teTeX?
Very good question for which I have no answer. I had wondered about that
myself.
cheerio
ralf
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