Arch Linux

Firmicus

Forum Fellow

From: Germany

Registered: 2006-02-28

Posts: 168

TeX Live packages

This thread is a follow-up to http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=270922 which is getting quite long and hard to follow for newcomers.

This summarizes the current state of things: last February I have created a set of 61 PKGBUILDs  for TeX Live. These were submitted to the maintainer of the (antiquated ) tetex package, but for some reasons there has been no reaction. Some time after the above thread was started, I jumped in, and finally, in late June, an ongoing collaborative effort was initiated between myself, Attila, ezzetabi, PDExperiment626 and some others to improve my original PKGBUILDs so that they can be accepted in community.

Now we have two sets of PKGBUILDs (with auxiliary files):
* texlive-stable targets the "frozen" 2007.0 release of TeXLive, and
* texlive-svn is based on the current development version. (This was until last week the only PKGBUILDs we had.)
Note however that in both versions the binaries are absolutely identical, so the suffix "svn" only applies to the CTAN packages. Currently it seems that both sets of PKGBUILDs compile well, though in "texlive-svn" they will  need updating as soon as major changes are introduced on the texlive svn server.

More detailed information on the packages and instructions on how to build them can be found on http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TeXLive

Note that, as I mentioned at the end of the original thread, I will be on holiday until the end of this month, but I hope to be able to read and contribute to this forum once in a while.

In the hope that our efforts will be rewarded by having the best possible texlive packages in community soon ;-)

Cheers,
Firmicus

mucknert

Member

From: Berlin // Germany

Registered: 2006-06-27

Posts: 510

Re: TeX Live packages

Woohoo! That is all that I can say about that.

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Todays mistakes are tomorrows catastrophes.

Blind

Member

From: Desert mountain

Registered: 2005-02-06

Posts: 386

Re: TeX Live packages

Lobbying here for putting it into community.
C'mon guys! Give us TexLive!
Cheers,
Blind

Sigi

Member

From: Thurgau, Switzerland

Registered: 2005-09-22

Posts: 1,131

Re: TeX Live packages

+1 for Blind's request! Put it in [community]!

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Haven't been here in a while. Still rocking Arch.

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

Or at least tell us: why are we waiting?

itbhp

Member

From: Italy - Abruzzo - Sulmona

Registered: 2007-04-30

Posts: 13

Re: TeX Live packages

So tetex package is deprecated or not?

Should I install texlive-stable?

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

My `personal' piece of advice is try compiling all texlive-cvs packages you need if it fails fall back to stable. Stable really should work.
CVS may fails since the cvs servers are always changing the .paths files can be outdated.

Blind

Member

From: Desert mountain

Registered: 2005-02-06

Posts: 386

Re: TeX Live packages

Stable works nicely, while the svn has already changed again...
Nevertheless, given the stability of stable, I would really like to see texlive in community - oh, did I just say that again?

Cheers

gour

Member

From: Croatia

Registered: 2007-07-28

Posts: 67

Re: TeX Live packages

Stable works nicely, while the svn has already changed again...
Nevertheless, given the stability of stable, I would really like to see texlive in community - oh, did I just say that again?

Cheers

Same here - stable works nicely and I'd like to see it in community.

I see that stable has

3.141592-2.2-0.996-patch1

version of XeTeX, so I wonder whether there will be separate package for XeTeX (which is maybe in more rapid development than the rest of TeX Live) or it's recommended to just install texlive-svn ?

What about eg. LyX? 1.5.1 is released with Unicode support and the package should be upgraded to take into consideration texlive deps besides tetex

Sincerely,
Gour

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

@Blind, that is a bad news... Firmicus is unavailable and I do not understood his scripts much (no comments and perl language which I do not know) for updating the .paths files...

Do anyone know perl and wanna trying to help?
http://ankabut.net/archlinux/texlive-scripts.zip

Last edited by ezzetabi (2007-08-09 06:46:33)

Blind

Member

From: Desert mountain

Registered: 2005-02-06

Posts: 386

Re: TeX Live packages

@ezzetabi: Unfortunately, I have no knowledge whatsoever of perl. I would really like to help but I am limited to C...

Well, I think as long as the developers (Where are you guys? Are you listening? Could some dev please acknowledge that this thread exists?) put the stable version in community, the svn version is not that time critical.
The stable version works very well; I also think the way this version is packaged is much better than in other distros.

Cheers,
Blind

xhemi

Member

From: /dev/urandom

Registered: 2007-03-14

Posts: 11

Website

Re: TeX Live packages

really nice builds! good work!

i added the packages to my repo for those who believe i'm trustworthy, live in sweden and don't feel like building everything, texlive-stable, themselves...
ftp://cube2.se/arch/i686

Last edited by xhemi (2007-08-10 18:21:07)

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

@Blind
It seems the dev ignore us, I am starting to think that not putting this stuff in the aur is a mistake...

I'll try to understand the scripts and integrate them in the PKGBUILD, if I could do that we would a much more stable version since PKGBUILDs should follow the changes in cvs.

[vEX]

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-11-23

Posts: 450

Re: TeX Live packages

If you want the attention of the devs you should try the mailing lists and possibly also IRC. Or mailing one of them directly.

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attila

Member

Registered: 2006-11-14

Posts: 293

Re: TeX Live packages

ezzetabi wrote:
It seems the dev ignore us, I am starting to think that not putting this stuff in the aur is a mistake...

Have you oversee in the other thread that Firmicus is in holiday? Let him enjoy the days until the end of August and after this the one and only who knows all about this perl scripts won't ignore you.:) If you have problems with the *.paths files than try texlive-stable.zip until Firmicus will be back.

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

@attila
reading only the last post of the thread wont help you understanding what is going on...

Blind

Member

From: Desert mountain

Registered: 2005-02-06

Posts: 386

Re: TeX Live packages

@ezzetabi: I think that is a great idea to try and make a self contained PKGBUILD. Do you think that will be possible? Well, and if the devs won't listen, I suppose that AUR would do. I get the feeling they don't want to deal with this package...

But as [vEX] has mentioned, this might not be a good place to lobby - I will try in the other channels as soon as possible (am on vacation right now and can only use my wife's MacBook - nice thing, I have to say, even without Archlinux on it......)

Cheers,
Blind

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

@Blind
It is a nice idea, but I am just messing up atm... :S Yet, I am pretty sure it is possible.

About [vEX]'s comment, it is pretty sad thinking this forum is actually only a decoration...

[vEX]

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2006-11-23

Posts: 450

Re: TeX Live packages

Seeing how the forum grows I'd say it's quite understandable that the devs don't have the time to read all the threads, that's why I suggested using the mailing lists. The devs do post and read the forum, the question is just if they will notice this specific thread. Even if they do they might not have the time to reply, but I wouldn't call it 'decoration'.

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PC: Antec P182B | Asus P8Z77-V PRO | Intel i5 3570k | 16GB DDR3 | GeForce 450GTS | 4TB HDD | Pioneer BDR-207D | Asus Xonar DX | Altec Lansing CS21 | Eizo EV2736W-BK | Arch Linux x86_64
HTPC: Antec NSK2480 | ASUS M3A78-EM (AMD 780G) | AMD Athlon X3 425 | 8GB DDR2 | GeForce G210 | 2TB HDD | Arch Linux x86_64
Server: Raspberry Pi (model B) | 512MB RAM | 750GB HDD | Arch Linux ARM

Blind

Member

From: Desert mountain

Registered: 2005-02-06

Posts: 386

Re: TeX Live packages

[vEX], I would agree with you if it wasn't such a big thread (the other one, at least). I certainly doubt that the devs are not paying attention to this particular thread. I guess they must have their reasons.
Cheers,
Blind

ezzetabi

Member

Registered: 2006-08-27

Posts: 947

Re: TeX Live packages

I really think they should tell us the reason here, writing a simple answer uses only few minutes...

mucknert

Member

From: Berlin // Germany

Registered: 2006-06-27

Posts: 510

Re: TeX Live packages

Just an FYI: the Devs don't maintain community. The TUs do. So if you want your stuff in community, ask a TU.

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Todays mistakes are tomorrows catastrophes.

toofishes

Developer

From: Chicago, IL

Registered: 2006-06-06

Posts: 602

Website

Re: TeX Live packages

Guys- being a developer, I can tell you that 95% of us don't regularly browse the forums unless there is something we are pointed to by someone else. That is what happened to me here. So, straight from a dev- post a summary on the mailing list of what has been done, what needs to be done, and why this is superior to tetex in the current repos, and I'm sure we can get things figured out.

The_ouroboros

Member

From: Pavia, Italy

Registered: 2007-05-28

Posts: 140

Re: TeX Live packages

so... how are things now??
And if I use tetex, I'll go to hell???

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Gnu/Linux User on Arch(x86_64)

Blind

Member

From: Desert mountain

Registered: 2005-02-06

Posts: 386

Re: TeX Live packages

so... how are things now??

Well, working on it...

And if I use tetex, I'll go to hell???

Definetely, but as this is your problem
I'll remain with cheers,
Blind