Bug#392195: tetex-bin: Lots of access to nonexistent /share/* files

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Toby Speight <T.M.Speight.90@cantab.net> wrote:

> Package: tetex-bin
> Version: 3.0-19
> Severity: normal
>
> tetex is driving my /share automounter crazy - here's the syslog from
> my latest upgrade:
>
> /--------
> | Oct 10 14:52:24 canisp automount[20087]: failed to mount /share/texmf-local
> | Oct 10 14:52:24 canisp automount[20088]: failed to mount /share/texmf
> | Oct 10 14:52:59 canisp automount[20164]: failed to mount /share/texmf-local
[...]
> (you get the idea)
>
> Most of those seem to come from the upgrade of tetex-bin.
>
> I've tried to dig into kpathsea as this seems to be involved in
> some search path, but it's not documented, and it's not clear where
> it's specified and how to change it.  (I note the information below
> suggests it's not installed, but I actually have 3.0-19; don't know
> why it appears as 'pn'...)
>
> I hope it's simply a documentation fix that's required.  RTFM didn't
> work for me.

I fear not.  

I don't think it should ever search in /share.  However, for sure it
will always try many non-existent paths that are included at compile
time.  

The place to patch this is tetex-bin-3.0/texk/kpathsea/texmf.in, 

TEXMFCNF = {$SELFAUTOLOC,$SELFAUTODIR,$SELFAUTOPARENT}{,{/share,}/texmf{-local,}/web2c};$TETEXDIR;$TEXMF/web2c;@web2c@

This results, at runtime, in

$ kpsewhich --expand-var='$TEXMFCNF'
{/usr/bin,/usr,/}{,{/share,}/texmf{-local,}/web2c}::/usr/share/texmf/web2c:/usr/share/texmf/web2c

So I guess for Debian we should remove "$SELFAUTOLOC," (the bin dir),
",$SELFAUTOPARENT" (the one directly in /), after that we should only
have /share, no empty component, and drop the {-local,} bracket
completely.  In other words:

TEXMFCNF = {$SELFAUTODIR}{/share/texmf/web2c};$TETEXDIR;$TEXMF/web2c;@web2c@

Or even simpler, since everything is there three times, simply

TEXMFCNF = $TETEXDIR;$TEXMF/web2c;@web2c@

(The last duplication, one based on $TEXMF, and the empty TETEXDIR might
serve have a purpose for some users, better keep them in)

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