Bug#1054043: texlive: Texlive updates are too large
Package: texlive
Version: 2023.20230613-3
Severity: wishlist
Dear Maintainer,
This is not a new problem, but after all these years I figured maybe
I should finally report it: I think updates to Texlive are larger than
they should. This is probably not completely specific to Texlive but
that's where I see it in the most glaring way since some of its packages
are the largest .deb packages I have.
Let's take the example of `texlive-lang-french`: the last two `.deb`
packages I have for it in /var (I'm tracking Debian testing) are around
80MB each.
But if I use `xdelta` on their respective (uncompressed) `data.tar`
I get an 11MB result, there's a clear potential to reduce the needed
download size by a factor 7x in this case (and potentially disk space).
For the `texlive-fonts-extra` monster, the xdelta is 20MB while the
`.deb` are 500MB, a reduction by a factor 24x.
[ The above two comparisons are between 2022.20230122-4 and
2023.20230613-2. ]
Clearly, taking advantage of this will require changes to the Debian
infrastructure, so is outside of the scope of the Texlive team itself,
but I hope you'll know where to redirect this "bug" report.
And in the mean time: thank you for your work, of course,
Stefan "dreaming of Debian updates as efficient as
`git fetch` :-)"
-- Package-specific info:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: We will only consider bug reports concerning
the packaging of TeX Live as relevant. If you have problems with
combination of packages in a LaTeX document, please consult your
local TeX User Group, the comp.text.tex user group, the author of
the original .sty file, or any other help resource.
In particular, bugs that are related to up-upstream, i.e., neither
Debian nor TeX Live (upstream), but the original package authors,
will be closed immediately.
*** The Debian TeX Team is *not* a LaTeX Help Desk ***
If you report an error when running one of the TeX-related binaries
(latex, pdftex, metafont,...), or if the bug is related to bad or wrong
output, please include a MINIMAL example input file that produces the
error in your report.
Please run your example with
(pdf)latex -recorder ...
(or any other program that supports -recorder) and send us the generated
file with the extension .fls, it lists all the files loaded during
the run and can easily explain problems induced by outdated files in
your home directory.
Don't forget to also include minimal examples of other files that are
needed, e.g. bibtex databases. Often it also helps
to include the logfile. Please, never send included pictures!
If your example file isn't short or produces more than one page of
output (except when multiple pages are needed to show the problem),
you can probably minimize it further. Instructions on how to do that
can be found at
http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini-en.html (english)
or
http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini.html (german)
##################################
minimal input file
##################################
other files
######################################
List of ls-R files
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root staff 80 Apr 3 2016 /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2302 Sep 28 12:24 /var/lib/texmf/ls-R
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Oct 12 2022 /usr/share/texmf/ls-R -> /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXMFMAIN
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Aug 27 17:39 /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/ls-R -> /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXLIVEDIST
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Aug 27 17:39 /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/ls-R -> /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXLIVEDIST
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80 Apr 14 2014 /usr/share/texlive/texmf/ls-R
######################################
Config files
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 475 Oct 24 2022 /etc/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Aug 27 17:39 /usr/share/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf -> /var/lib/texmf/fmtutil.cnf-DEBIAN
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Aug 27 17:39 /usr/share/texmf/web2c/updmap.cfg -> /var/lib/texmf/updmap.cfg-DEBIAN
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5047 Sep 22 12:54 /var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/config/language.dat
######################################
Files in /etc/texmf/web2c/
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 283 Aug 24 2006 mktex.cnf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 475 Oct 24 2022 texmf.cnf
######################################
md5sums of texmf.d
ca40c66f144b4bafc3e59a2dd32ecb9c /etc/texmf/texmf.d/00debian.cnf
-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'stable-security'), (100, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: amd64
Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-7-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_WARN, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=fr_CH.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_CH.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages texlive depends on:
ii texlive-fonts-recommended 2023.20230613-3
ii texlive-latex-base 2023.20230613-3
ii texlive-latex-recommended 2023.20230613-3
texlive recommends no packages.
texlive suggests no packages.
Versions of packages tex-common depends on:
ii ucf 3.0043+nmu1
Versions of packages tex-common suggests:
ii debhelper 13.11.6
Versions of packages texlive is related to:
ii tex-common 6.18
ii texlive-binaries 2023.20230311.66589-6
-- debconf information:
tex-common/check_texmf_wrong:
tex-common/check_texmf_missing:
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