<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Chris,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Next year’s MacTeX web page will have instructions on using the TeX Live install script</div><div class="">to directly install TeX anywhere you wish, and in particular in spots owned by you.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">As for the TeX Dist structure, one problem is that it is also owned by root. This makes it</div><div class="">hard for users who don’t have root access to deal with it. Similarly the TeX Dist Pref Pane</div><div class="">requires root access to select different TeX distributions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I talked about this problem at the TUG conference last summer, and introduced one possible</div><div class="">solution (there are many). It is a “Local Pref Pane”, and is available, compiled and with source,</div><div class="">at</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><a href="http://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/LocalTeX.zip" class="">http://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/LocalTeX.zip</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This requires Mavericks or higher.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The idea of this pane is to select an active distribution JUST FOR YOU, independently</div><div class="">of the choice in the global pane. It can coexist with the global pane, or work even if there</div><div class="">is no global pane. It can see distributions with TeX Dist structures. So if the global choice</div><div class="">is TeX Live 2014, but you want to use TeX Live 2013, you can.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This new pane makes it essentially trivial to add extra distributions, including the one</div><div class="">you mention, to the available distributions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Disadvantages:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>a) You must reconfigure your GUI apps. But this need only be done once, and</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>the Pane itself will reconfigure a few of them. The global pane uses /usr/texbin</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>as an indirect pointer to the active distribution. The local pane uses</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>~/Library/TeX/LocalTeX/texbin as a similar pointer.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>b) You must also add ~/Library/TeX/LocalTeX/texbin to your path if you access</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>TeX from the shell.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Dick Koch</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Mar 6, 2015, at 9:10 AM, Maloney, Christopher (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [C] <<a href="mailto:maloneyc@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov" class="">maloneyc@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">I posted this question on the TeX SX site here, <a href="http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/229954/how-do-i-tell-mactex-about-my-user-install-of-live-tex" class="">http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/229954/how-do-i-tell-mactex-about-my-user-install-of-live-tex</a>, and they suggested that I send the question to this mailing list.<br class=""><br class="">This question is similar to "How do I set up MacTeX so admin rights aren't necessary?" (<a href="http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3744/how-do-i-set-up-mactex-so-admin-rights-arent-necessary" class="">http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3744/how-do-i-set-up-mactex-so-admin-rights-arent-necessary</a>).<br class=""><br class="">I have a Mac at work, and the sysadmins won't give me write permissions to /usr/local/texlive. So, per the instructions in "Is there any way to have a LaTeX compiler on a Mac without root access?” (<a href="http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/106113/is-there-any-way-to-have-a-latex-compiler-on-a-mac-without-root-access" class="">http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/106113/is-there-any-way-to-have-a-latex-compiler-on-a-mac-without-root-access</a>), I installed my own user-specific version of TeX Live, at ~/Library/texlive/2014, and it is working fine.<br class=""><br class="">Now, how do I tell MacTeX's "TeX Distribution" utility (in System Preferences) about this installation of TeX Live, so that I can use MacTeX with it? If I need admin rights to do this, it would be okay -- I can ask our sysadmins to do this if it's a one-time thing. What I don't want is to be tied to asking them, for example, every time I want to install a new package.<br class=""><br class="">The comments to my question on SX indicate that there is a way to do this by tweaking the symlinks under /Library/TeX. I’ve had a look there, and these symlinks see pretty complicated! Is there an easy way (maybe a script) that will set up these symlinks automatically, if I just tell the sysadmins to run it for me, giving them the location of my local install?<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">Thanks!<br class=""><br class="">Chris Maloney<br class=""><br class="">----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------<br class="">TeX FAQ: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq" class="">http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq</a><br class="">List Reminders and Etiquette: <a href="http://email.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/" class="">http://email.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/</a><br class="">List Archive: <a href="http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/" class="">http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/</a><br class="">TeX on Mac OS X Website: <a href="http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/" class="">http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/</a><br class="">List Info: <a href="https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex" class="">https://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex</a><br class=""><br class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>