latex_2e-7.deb almost ate my disk
I ran into some trials and tribulations when I tried to install the
latex_2e-7.deb package... it almost used up all the space on my hard
drive. Here's a copy of my installation notes that describe the problem:
Running 'dpkg -i latex_2e-7.deb' produced the following error:
Unpacking latex (from latex_2e-7.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of latex:
latex depends on mflib (>= 1.0-8); however:
Version of mflib on system is 1.0-5.
So...
- installed newer version of mflib and mfbin and tried again...
- it's taking a **long** time on the "Rebuilding Latex' format ..."
section.
- I had to kill the programs spawned by these processes as my disk
space was being eaten up. After a little investigation, I discovered
that it created a *huge* error file in directory /usr/lib/texmf/ini
called latex.log that was 225775616 bytes in size!!! As I only had
about 2% disk space left on my 1 gig drive, I didn't want to try
looking at the file using less or more in case these files would try
to create a large temporary file that would exhaust my disk space,
so I examined the head and tail of the latex.log file with the
following results:
-------------------- output of head command ------------------
# head -n 20 latex.log
This is TeX, Version 3.1415 (C version 6.1) (INITEX) 12 OCT 1996 13:14
**latex.initex
(latex.initex (/usr/lib/texmf/tex/latex/base/latex.ltx
(/usr/lib/texmf/tex/latex/config/texsys.cfg)
./texsys.aux found
***
\@currdir set to: ./.
***
***
Assuming \openin and \input
have the same search path.
***
***
Defining UNIX/DOS style filename parser.
***
catcodes, registers,
\maxdimen=\dimen10
\hideskip=\skip10
-----------------end of output of head command ------------------
---------------- output of tail command -----------------------
# tail -n 20 latex.log
R to run without stopping, Q to run quietly,
I to insert something, E to edit your file,
1 or ... or 9 to ignore the next 1 to 9 tokens of input,
H for help, X to quit.
? y
Type <return> to proceed, S to scroll future error messages,
R to run without stopping, Q to run quietly,
I to insert something, E to edit your file,
1 or ... or 9 to ignore the next 1 to 9 tokens of input,
H for help, X to quit.
? y
Type <return> to proceed, S to scroll future error messages,
R to run without stopping, Q to run quietly,
I to insert something, E to edit your file,
1 or ... or 9 to ignore the next 1 to 9 tokens of input,
H for help, X to quit.
? y
Type <return> to proceed, S to scroll future error messages,
R to run without stopping, Q to run quietly,
I to insert somethin
---------- end of output of tail command -----------------------
So, it looks like there was a repeating error that the yes utility
was triggering over and over again. Good thing that I killed the
programs spawned by the installation program or I would have filled
up my disk.
So, I tried to purge the latex package with the following results:
# dpkg --purge latex
(Reading database ... 33252 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing latex ...
Removing latex format(s) using install-fmt-base(8)
Removed latex format/base and related files
dpkg - warning: while removing latex, directory /etc/texmf' not empty so
not removed.
Purging configuration files for latex ...
Note that this did remove the offending *huge* latex.log file.
Something appears to be amiss with the installation procedure for this
package, or perhaps I inadvertently screwed something up. I'd appreciate
some advice on where to go from here, as I really would like to get this
package installed.
Thanks in advance,
Nick
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Nick Busigin nick@xwing.org
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