Bug#342247: updating tetex-extra fails

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

"Robert Sander" <robert.sander@epigenomics.com> wrote:

> snell:~# kpsewhich --expand-var '$WEB2C'
> {/root/texmf,/usr/local/share/texmf,/usr/local/lib/texmf,!!/usr/share/texmf}/web2c
> snell:~# grep WEB2C /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf
> % WEB2C is for Web2C specific files.  The current directory may not be
> WEB2C = $TEXMF/web2c
> snell:~# grep '^TEXMF =' /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf
> TEXMF = {$HOMETEXMF,$TEXMFLOCAL,$TEXMFOLDLOCAL,!!$TEXMFMAIN}

If I remember right, these are settings from woody.  It's very strange
that only tetex extra fails, normally also tetex-bin should have given
the same error.

Unfortunately /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf is both a configuration file and a
generated file, the real configuration file in this case is
/etc/texmf/texmf.d/05TeXMF.cnf, but there's an additional layer between
them to preserve changes to texmf.cnf.

There should be a line in both files (05TeXMF.cnf and texmf.cnf) that
reads

VARTEXMF = /var/lib/texmf

and the line with TEXMF should be

TEXMF = {$HOMETEXMF,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFOLDLOCAL,!!$VARTEXMF,!!$TEXMFMAIN}

If you want, you can add trees there, or remove TEXMFOLDLOCAL, but the
others should be there (and VARTEXMF and TEXMFMAIN must).  

If this is wrong in 05TeXMF.cnf, fix it, or copy the file
/etc/texmf/texmf.d/05TeXMF.cnf.dpkg-dist over it if you still have it.
After that run "update-texmf" and verify that the change also migrated
to texmf.cnf.

If it is correct in 05TeXMF.cnf, but wrong in texmf.cnf, this means that
you have manually edited texmf.cnf (which is allowed, but discouraged).
if you still need those changes, you should make the same changes to the
corresponding files in texmf.d, run update-texmf and verify that
everything is okay.

You don't by chance have a typescript of the upgrade from woody's
version of tetex (1.0something) to sarge's? 

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