Bug#267664: tetex-bin: 'latex' command will not run due to broken config files.

[Benjamin Redelings I <bredelin@ucla.edu>]

Many thanks for the quick and detailed response!

Based on your instructions I have fixed the problem.

The problem was exxacerbated by my foolishly defining TEXMF and TEXINPUT 
in my .bashrc (which I forgot).

After I altered /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf and remove the definitions of TEXMF 
and TEXINPUT from my .bashrc things worked fine.

Thanks!
-BenRI

Frank Küster wrote:
> No, it's not kpsewhich, it's probably your debconf answers. As a
> temporary solution, run dpkg-reconfigure tetex-bin, and choose to manage
> fmtutil.cnf and updmap.cfg through debconf. Also, you should make sure
> that the commands
>
> egrep '^VARTEXMF|^TEXMF ' /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf 
> egrep '^VARTEXMF|^TEXMF ' /etc/texmf/texmf.d/05TeXMF.cnf
>
> give the same output, namely
>
> VARTEXMF = /var/lib/texmf
> TEXMF = {$HOMETEXMF,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFOLDLOCAL,!!$VARTEXMF,!!$TEXMFMAIN}
>
> If update-texmf does not achieve this, this means you have edited
> /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf manually, and when ucf asked you upon upgrade, you
> refused to accept the maintainers' changes. You need those two lines in
> /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf - either edit it manually again, or you can:
>
> # mv /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf texmf.cnf-save.copy
> # ucf --purge /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf
> # update-texmf
> (now check again with egrep '^VARTEXMF|^TEXMF ' /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf)
>
> and optionally 
>
> # diff texmf.cnf-save.copy /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf
> # $EDITOR /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf 
>
> and make your changes again.
>
>
> > P.S I have marked this bug as grave, because it makes latex unusable on
> > my system.  If this is in fact NOT a problem for everybody, then please
> > forgive my exxageration.
>
>
> It's probably a problem for everybody who is not reading the diff's that
> dpkg and ucf offer when a conffile is updated.
>
> Regards, Frank