[OS X TeX] The Future of TeX on Mac OS X

[Adam R. Maxwell]

On Jan 17, 2007, at 18:12, Thomas Bohn wrote:

> I'm really confused. I read the archives of the list and someone said
> something like "Mac OS X is still the best platform for LaTeX." That
> is basically the main reason why I joined this list.
>
> But the only thing I see is, that the i-Installer is unsupported now.
> The distribution teTeX is no longer supported too.

Unsupported doesn't mean non-functional.  In the case of i-Installer,  
it means that you get support from this list instead of by hassling  
Gerben Wierda directly.  You can probably get help on teTeX from  
comp.text.tex also.

> And I can't find
> current information about it anywhere. Most websites about TeX on Mac
> hasn't updated for at least a month.

Do you think websites should be updated weekly?  If so, why?  Most  
(all?) of the sites are maintained by volunteers, so perhaps they'd  
welcome your help.

> Alternatives might be Fink or MacPorts but they have teTeX which is no
> longer in active development.
>
> Or the bloated MacTeX package, which is nice for starters but not if
> you actually knows what you need and what you don't need. BTW the
> unsupported notice will make i-Installer extremely scary for
> beginners.

Perhaps.  Are you volunteering to make a stripped down TeX package?   
Or maintain i-Installer?  If you or anyone else is sufficiently  
concerned, Gerben has asked for assistance in maintaining i-Packages  
and i-Installer, but no one has stepped up to the best of my knowledge.

> I just hope, someone can explain me the development of LaTeX at the  
> moment.

Rumors of the demise of TeX on Mac OS X are greatly exaggerated :).

-- Adam


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