Re: I need help with TeX administration on Debian Sarge

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@mesanetworks.net>]

On Tue, May 03, 2005 at 08:05:44PM +0200, Aur?lien Camp?as wrote:
> Le mardi 03 mai 2005 ? 11:16 -0600, Paul E Condon a ?crit :
> > I am not a TeX expert. I have books and I am searching the Web. I found
> > a package that is supposed to do a thing that I want, namely newsletr.
> > I want to install it on my Sarge system, which already has tetex package
> > installed and running. But I can't figure out what to do in order to
> > the TeX package, newsletr, into tetex the Debian way.
> 
> hmmm, when there is no glowing "debian way", the normal way applies ...
> 
> >  The instructions
> > from ctan.org on managing a one-person TeX system seem to assume a starting
> > point in the TeX config files that differs from what was set up by aptitude.
> 
> which point ? please give details

There are a number of auxilliary directory trees that are not mentioned in 
the tug instructions, but I think I'm beginning to understand a little.

> 
> > I can't make out what I really need to do, and I'm almost certain that
> > Debian tetex package eliminates the need for steps that are required for
> > non-Debian tetex users, but what steps?
> > Where can I find help that is
> > specific to the Debian package? Where can I just find documentation that
> > has been edited to reflect Debian package reality?
> > 
> > Please give pointers to the real Debian stuff.
> 
> please give information on how the ctan stuff differs from the debian
> directory or conf file layout, most of the time, Debian is *very*
> conforming to this kind of stuff (yeah, how precise is this !)
> 
> BTW, there is a simple series of steps to do a single user install of
> any .sty file :
> - create a ~/texmf/tex dir
> - put you newsletr.sty file into it
> - run texhash
> 

The above really is a great help. It eliminates a number of
goofy ideas as to what the official documentation means. And confirms
that Debian allows individual users to have their own stuff from CTAN 
in their own user space, which isn't mentioned in tug one-person document.

Actually, there is not a .sty file in newsletr.tar.gz, but there is
a .tex file that contained a number of macros and an explanation in a
read.me that the author preferred to write in pure TeX and to ignore
LaTeX. And, there is a sample newsletter in which I found the codes that
forced TeX to read the macros. It is all working and beginning to make
sense to me. 
 
Thanks.

AND, a really sensible question that I just thought of: Are there any
pre-defined layouts along the lines of 'article' that are particularly
appropriate for small scale news-letters but don't have names that are
found on a search on the string 'news', news-letters such as might be
published by a local book club, or political action group? Any
suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks, again.

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@mesanetworks.net