Re: 2.99.8: updmap output directories

[Thomas Esser <te@dbs.uni-hannover.de>]

> The principle of Debian configuration is: Every file that is meant for
> configuration must be in /etc/texmf. It is against our policy (and quite
> inconvenient for the user) to put default ones into /usr/share/texmf and
> just tell the user to create and change copies.

That's the way texconfig works. Ok, if you have TEXMFMAIN = TEXMFCONFIG
and unpacked the tetex-texmf tarball in TEXMFMAIN, then no copying will
happen, as source and destination are the same.

> Yes, your scripts don't change them, but a user might want to. 

I see.

> (we don't discriminate between TEXMFMAIN and TEXMFDIST, this is the

Ok, but please make sure that all links in texmf/doc/index.html and
texmf/doc/tetex/TETEXDOC.* work properly.

> TEXMFDIST = not used

The idea of TEXMFDIST was that people can just replace that tree by the
content of a new texmf tarball. By merging the TEXMFMAIN content into
that tree, this is no longer possible as people would loose e.g. their
pool files.

> TEXMF = {$TEXMFHOME,!!$TEXMFCONFIG,!!$TEXMFVAR,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!TEXMFSITE,!!$TEXMFMAIN}

This cannot ensure that texconfig works. If someone has a copy of
config.ps in $TEXMFHOME, than texconfig would still save a modified file
in $TEXMFCONFIG which means that the changed file will be hidden.

My idea was the following: trees like TEXMFHOME, TEXMFLOCAL and TEXMFSITE
should be free from config files *unless* the user sets TEXMFCONFIG to one
of those. By searching $TEXMFCONFIG first, texconfig would always store
the modified files into the right tree. If some user wants to store more
than just additional fonts / macros in his TEXMFHOME (e.g. also store
config files there), he should set TEXMFCONFIG.

> (By the way, $TEXCONFIG need not be in the path when it just points to
> an other tree, right?

TEXMFCONFIG, not TEXCONFIG (which also exists). But, yes, you are right.
On the other hand, the idea of the new texconfig is that a user can set
TEXMFCONFIG and define a new destination for changed config files. If you
remove $TEXMFCONFIG from the list in TEXMF, the user would also have to
set TEXMF to make sure his tree is actually used. Not very convenient...

Thomas