Arch Linux

djg1971

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Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

[SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Upgraded to a 64-bit system yesterday.   Now I cannot process any .tex files, just get the following error:

>$ latex myfile.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Arch Linux)
restricted \write18 enabled.
(Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)

does anyone know how to make latex work in a 64-bit system?  I can't work without it.

Last edited by djg1971 (2009-12-08 22:32:47)

.:B:.

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Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 5,819

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Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

If your topic title is implying what I'm thinking, then what is your motivation to run a 64 bit kernel on a 32 bit userland, and did you try rolling back to see if that fixes it?

I presume you did not try it, so do that, and decide between the tradeoffs.

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Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

djg1971

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Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

hmm.  I just noticed that the number of packages relating to latex that are supported for 64-bit is pretty small.  I never would have thought people would consider 64-bit systems to have "come of age" if they didn't support latex.  I didn't get the sense that it was going to be an issue while reinstalling packages via pacman...

To answer your question, I switched to 64-bit because I now have 4GB of ram and could really use all of it for math and data processing.
I really am amazed that the latex packages essentially don't work at all under 64-bit.  Is anyone working on improving that situation?  Not having proper latex means I cannot write any real scientific papers, so is a nonstarter.

djg1971

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Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

BTW:  I had just started looking into 32-bit compatibility operation when I found out there was no 64-bit acroread.  I'm not sure exactly how to invoke this compatibility, but woud this be expected to enable latex again also?

.:B:.

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Registered: 2006-11-26

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Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Your topic talks about a kernel, not about a complete 64 bit installation.

Again: care to elaborate? Fuzzy topics make for fuzzy help...

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Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

flamelab

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From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2,160

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Latex/XeLatex (Texlive) works perfectly here on 64bit system.

djg1971

Member

Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

B,  I upgraded the entire system.  new hard drive.  64-bit net install from latest arch iso image.  my old system (32-bit) is preserved.

I kept a list of all installed packages and attempted to replace them with their 64-bit versions.  The automatic method of doing this via brisbin33 did not work, so I resorted to doing it semi-manually.  Everything mostly came up fine so in less than a day I  had a new working 64-bit system.  Most people seem to say "64-bit has really come of age" so it never occurred to me that things that I rely on all the time like latex might not work.  pacman found and installed 64-bit versions of texlive-bin, -core, and pstricks, so I did assume they might work...

Do you know of a way to make it work for my new system, or should I shelve the new drive and wait another year or so?

.:B:.

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Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

I really wonder what's wrong with doing it right and wiping the hell out of it and doing a complete, clean install. It's not because someone else can pull that off without problems that you're guaranteed to have none either. But then again, we have recommended against such practices before.

Don't get me wrong, but if you're still posting your own topics in the Newbie Corner after having used Arch (intermittently or not, I don't know) for more than a year, I'm wondering whether you do that because it will lower the bar for your own topics or because you're unsure of how skilled you are. If it's the latter, then I wonder why you attempted such a hackish 'upgrade' in the first place.

You can look at it as a challenge - it all depends on how valuable your time is.

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Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

djg1971

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Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

B,  I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.  I did precisely that - a clean install onto a blank disk.  Then I added a whole bunch of 64-bit packages from the official repositories.  Among those were three packages relating to latex:

texlive-bin 2009.4-3
texlive-core 2009.15574-1
texlive-pstricks 2009.15032-1

If you are balking at the use of the word "upgrade," then just assume that some people call it an upgrade unless they get a whole other machine, not just another laptop hard drive.  I was going to use the same disk and effectively lose my 32-bit system, but a colleague had an acceptable drive I could use, so it became exactly what you advocate.  Nevertheless, latex doesn't work.

flamelab

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From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2,160

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Try kile in order to make it work.

.:B:.

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Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

If this discussion is - regrettably, might I add - turning into semantics, then it should be clear by now your initial post was severely lacking and confusing. Assumptions aren't gonna help either. I could also assume you're running Windows 7 64 bit. You need to spell it out. Other posts only add to that confusion:

B,  I upgraded the entire system.  new hard drive.  64-bit net install from latest arch iso image.  my old system (32-bit) is preserved.

What do you expect people to make of that? New hard drive, old 32 bit system preserved?

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Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

djg1971

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Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

b:

the original post was perhaps incomplete, but not hopelessly unclear.  things apparently degraded from there.  at any rate, as you hopefully realize by now, the "upgrade" was anything but hackish.  i contemplated something hackish a few days ago (after reading an arch wiki about the topic) -- THEN ASKED FOR ADVICE ABOUT IT, and followed the advice i was given.

regarding the post subforum:  i scanned the available categories of the arch forums, and, not finding it exceedingly clear where to post such a question (but figuring it might be a basic type problem), selected the newbie corner.  i wasn't aware one should refrain from trying to select the most likely place to generate an acceptable answer to a question simply because one has been using an arch distribution for > 1 year.  i will consider that further.

you should be aware that you appear to develop a surly tone pretty quickly, especially given that you're a forum moderator.

since you've effectively asked: i've been using linux since the 90's, and have been the system administrator for several systems over the years, though that was (mostly) several years ago now.  Linux has changed a lot since then, and frankly i was more of a power user 10 years ago than i am currently.

as for right now, i would be completely back in business if i could just get latex to work, and acroread would hurry up and make a 64-bit version available.  if you have any ideas about how to make latex functional, by all means let me know.

kile is a kde package if i understand correctly.  i use openbox and have gone to some trouble to avoid the new kde actually, so i will have to find some other way.  thanks for the suggestion though.

tavianator

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From: Waterloo, ON, Canada

Registered: 2007-08-21

Posts: 858

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Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Okay guys, way to have an irrelevant argument.

OP:  try running "fmtutil --all".

dalingrin

Member

Registered: 2009-03-18

Posts: 128

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

djg1971, just to verify, I understand you have a new installation but did you keep your old configs and such from /home?

djg1971

Member

Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

tavianator:  you are right about that.  i removed all the texlive packages via pacman -Rn, then reinstalled.  while installing, this time i got a few errors echoed from pacman:

`luatex -ini  -jobname=dvilualatex -progname=dvilualatex dvilualatex.ini' failed
`luatex -ini  -jobname=lualatex -progname=lualatex lualatex.ini' failed
`luatex -ini  -jobname=luatex -progname=luatex luatex.ini' failed
`luatex -ini  -jobname=dviluatex -progname=dviluatex dviluatex.ini' failed

these clearly apply to luatex, not to everything that was being installed/configured.

i didn't think i needed to rerun fmtutil, but tried your suggestion (fmtutil --all).  in the sections pertaining to luatex there are problems again such as:

...
Local config file fontmath.cfg used

====================================
(/usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/fontmath.cfg
(/usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/fontmath.ltx
=== Don't modify this file, use a .cfg file instead ===

(/usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omlcmm.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omscmsy.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/omxcmex.fd)
(/usr/share/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/ucmr.fd)
! Undefined control sequence.
\group@elt ...ndafter \reserved@a \string #2\@nil
                                                  \fi
l.81 ...SymbolFontAlphabet{\mathrm}    {operators}
                                                 
! Undefined control sequence.
\group@elt ...ndafter \reserved@a \string #2\@nil
                                                  \fi
l.81 ...SymbolFontAlphabet{\mathrm}    {operators}
                                                 
! Undefined control sequence.
\group@elt ...ndafter \reserved@a \string #2\@nil
...

and then at the end:

###############################################################################
fmtutil: Error! Not all formats have been built successfully.
Visit the log files in directory
  /root/.texlive/texmf-var/web2c
for details.
###############################################################################

This is a summary of all `failed' messages:
`luatex -ini  -jobname=dvilualatex -progname=dvilualatex dvilualatex.ini' failed
`luatex -ini  -jobname=lualatex -progname=lualatex lualatex.ini' failed
`luatex -ini  -jobname=luatex -progname=luatex luatex.ini' failed
`luatex -ini  -jobname=dviluatex -progname=dviluatex dviluatex.ini' failed

I don't see why failures in luatex should imply that none of the binaries will work at all, but in any case after fmtutil --all has finished, the same error as in the original post shows up:

$ latex test.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Arch Linux)
restricted \write18 enabled.
(Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

I'm with B here, from the posts I would say that the OP tried to upgrade in place instead of doing a clean install (which seems to be the case).

It is a case of semantics but in this case semantics are a very important part of the problem. Think of it as being something like: "I upgraded my car and my electric windows don't work" instead of "I bought a new car and the electric windows don't work".

I'm not trying to make anyone look bad or good, and it is not irrelevant either, my native language is not english, and I bet most of the users that post here are not english either, it is important that we all try to explain the problems and the solutions in a way that everyone understands (read, simple and easy to understand) so there are as little misunderstandings as possible.

More on topic, there is no 64bit acroread but you can install the 32bit one, look in the aur for the bin32-acroread, like many other 32bit only apps it is not in the official 64bit repos, from my experience it will work just fine but requires you to get some lib32 dependencies.
You may consider using xpdf or epdfview if you only don't need any of the advanced features of acroread.

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R00KIE
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djg1971

Member

Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

dalingrin,

the new skeleton version of my home directory was replaced with the backed up home directory.  some /etc files were replaced also.

jt512

Member

Registered: 2009-02-19

Posts: 262

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Upgraded to a 64-bit system yesterday.   Now I cannot process any .tex files, just get the following error:

>$ latex myfile.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Arch Linux)
restricted \write18 enabled.
(Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)

does anyone know how to make latex work in a 64-bit system?  I can't work without it.

Latex works fine on my 64-bit laptop.  Latex upgrades often require the user to run certain commands.  You may need to run them after an initial install now, too.  I don't know the specific commands by memory, but you should easily be able to find them by searching the forum for threads about latex.  Pay particular attention to Bender's posts.  He is apparently some kind of Latex developer.

Jay

tavianator

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From: Waterloo, ON, Canada

Registered: 2007-08-21

Posts: 858

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Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Hmm, I would've thought that would work.  The "format file error" usually means you have a format file made by some other version of tex.  Try this:
- Uninstall texlive-*
- rm -rf /usr/share/texmf*
- rm -rf ~/.texlive
- Reinstall texlive-*

perbh

Member

From: Republic of Texas

Registered: 2005-03-04

Posts: 765

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Maybe try a new user from scratch - without any of the baggage from an existing $HOME ?
That has saved me more than once - and is the reason why I regard $HOME as distro/arch-dependent.
Just about the only thing I would carry with me from $HOME would be .bashrc

Just my 2c-worth ...

Last edited by perbh (2009-12-08 20:19:14)

djg1971

Member

Registered: 2008-09-11

Posts: 185

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

tavianator:  thanks, but there were never any other tex packages installed on this system, and in any case i already did that exercise just to be sure.  see below though:

perbh:  thanks much for the suggestion.  though i don't understand why (and yes, i've now looked inside the directory), renaming ~/.texlive to something that won't be searched fixed the problem with no further action required.  truth be told i did not even know that directory was there -- there never used to be one, and running latex now in the new system does not autogenerate a new one either...  curiously, use of the "revnum" package now causes all lists to count back from 26 regardless of how many items are actually in the list (none have 26 in the test document), but that is a much nicer position to troubleshoot from...  anyway thanks.

[problem solved]

tavianator

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From: Waterloo, ON, Canada

Registered: 2007-08-21

Posts: 858

Website

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

Glad it's working; mark as [SOLVED] please.

jouke

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Registered: 2009-10-14

Posts: 72

Re: [SOLVED] upgraded to 64-bit kernel, now latex totally broken!?!?

There is still some unsolved matter here. See: http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/16791 for another description of the luatex problem mentioned in this thread. It does seem 64-bit related.