Re: Request for an "etch-ignore carte blanche" for alternative texlive dependencies

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Mike Bird <mgb-debian@yosemite.net> wrote:

> A lot of packages need a working Tetex/Texlive.  If I decide to use
> such a package a year from now, I'd rather have the possibility of using
> Texlive and the hope that most of the dependencies are correct rather
> than being forced to use an unsupported and unsupportable Tetex.
>
> FWIW, dependencies are a little different in the Tex world than in
> most of Debian.  Because the need for macros, fonts, templates etc
> are driven by the user documents rather than the software, Debian
> Tex users are accustomed to having to find and install extra files
> or packages to make their docs build.
>
> There are no good solutions here but a best effort to accomodate
> Texlive is better than none.  Frank's plan has the additional virtue
> that Tetex remains the default and Tetex dependencies are unaffected.
> Frank's plan provides a good starting point when that time comes for
> each Tetex user when the switch to Texlive becomes inescapable.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mike's arguments.  

Regards, Frank

-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)