Bug#297284: base: tetex after sarge install not setup correctly

[frank@kuesterei.ch (Frank Küster)]

"Jeffrey B. Green" <jeff@frontiernet.net> wrote:

> Package: base
> Severity: grave
>
> Installed sarge this last weekend

That is, you installed from scratch, it wasn't an upgrade from woody,
right? 

> and now trying to latex a document, but
> having a cascade of problems in getting it to work. 

Unfortunately, you told reportbug the wrong package name.  This has the
effect that some valuable information is missing.  Please be so kind and
send us the missing information.  If you answer to this mail, please run
the command

reportbug -b tetex-base

don't bother with the subject it asks for. It will open an editor with
some text already in it; please copy the text into your answer.
(Alternatively, you can use "reportbug tetex-base", choose "y" when
asked whether the bug appears, and type in the number, 297284 - this
will send a separate mail).

> First problem is:
>
>  
> /home/jeff/unk/250/exams/1[429] r lat
> latex wrapper
> This is e-TeX, Version 3.14159-2.1 (Web2C 7.4.5)
> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt latex.efmt
> fmtutil: config file `fmtutil.cnf' not found.
> I can't find the format file `latex.efmt'!
>
> I fixed that by rebuilding the ls-lR file via texconfig. (Also moved 
> fmtutil.cnf to /etc/texmf and put a link at wherever it was.)

This was not the right way to fix it.  You should remove the symlink in
/var/lib/texmf/web2c, and run (as root) update-fmtutil.  

To find the cause why fmtutil.cnf was not found, please send us the
contents of the files /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf and
/etc/texmf/texmf.d/05TeXMF.cnf, and the output of

grep texmf.cnf /var/lib/ucf/hashfile

> However,
> the next is not so obvious. I now get (at the tail of a long output:
>
> ...
> No pages of output.
> Transcript written on latex.log.
> mv: cannot create regular file `/usr/share/texmf/web2c/latex.log': Permission denied
> mv: cannot create regular file `/usr/share/texmf/web2c/latex.fmt': Permission denied
> /usr/share/texmf/web2c/mktexupd: /usr/share/texmf/web2c/latex.fmt not a file.
> I can't find the format file `latex.efmt'!

Please run

dpkg-reconfigure tetex-base

Does that fix the problem? If not, does

dpkg-reconfigure tetex-bin

help?

Regards, Frank

-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer