Bug#476954: texlive-extra-utils: epstopdf is missing gs

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Roland Stigge <stigge@antcom.de> wrote:

> Package: texlive-extra-utils
> Version: 2007.dfsg.1-2
> Severity: normal
>
> Hi,
>
> epstopdf (included in texlive-extra-utils) is missing gs:
>
> # epstopdf bassclef.eps 
> sh: gs: command not found
> #
>
> installing the additional package ghostscript fixes the problem.

The package currently Suggests: gs-gpl | gs-esp | gs-afpl, which, on a
first glance, looks correct[1]: epstopdf is one of 30 executables in the
package, and probably the only one needing ghostscript. 

On the other hand, I must admit that I have never used myself, and
rarely heard anyone using any of these programs except:

bibtex8  [2]
patgen   (very rarely)
epstopdf
pdfcrop
pdfclose (rarely on Linux)
pdfopen  (rarely on Linux)

(tangle and weave are also included and used on my system when I build
texlive-bin, but I guess that doesn't use the installed version).

So, seeing that epstopdf is probably one of the two or three most used
programs in texlive-extra-utils, and in many cases the reason why people
install that package, I think gs should be present in "all but unusual
installations", and thus it should be changed:

trunk/all/debian/tpm2deb.cfg
-suggests;texlive-extra-utils;ghostscript
+recommends;texlive-extra-utils;ghostscript

Regards, Frank



[1] except for the obsolete package names, of course, but that's already
    fixed in our repository
[2] wasn't there an attempt to replace bibtex by bibtex8 generally, as
    MikTeX has done it AFAIK?

-- 
Frank Küster
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)