Bug#396826: tex-common: Please make section 2.4 of TeX-on-Debian more precise about user settings

[Ralf Stubner <ralf.stubner@physik.uni-erlangen.de>]

Frank Küster wrote:
> Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at> wrote:
> 
>> +	    To override entries in the system wide configuration file 
>> +	    <file>texmf.cnf</file>, a user only needs to add lines to 
>> +	    <tt><var>HOME</var>/.texmf-config/web2c/texmf.cnf</tt>.
>> +	    Please only add those lines which are absolutely necessary.
> 
> I'd rather read this in the context, and in html instead of sgml-diff,
> but I think this could be improved.  It looks like it's mixing up two
> issues: The general (non-Debian-specific) fact that TeX programs read
> more than one texmf.cnf 
[...]

One problem is that texmf.cnf is only searched along the compiled in
TEXMFCNF (not TEXMFCONFIG). At least as long as it is not defined in the
environment. So in order for the above to work, one would also need

export TEXMFCNF=$HOME/.texmf-config/web2c:

(the final colon includes the system wide default).

cheerio
ralf