<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">I’m writing this short note so readers of the list will know something about the<div class="">DVD version of MacTeX.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">MacTeX is distributed free over the internet by CTAN and can also be obtained </div><div class="">from a torrent release. But it is also on a DVD which TUG sends to its members, </div><div class="">and which other users can buy for a nominal fee.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The 2015 DVD arrived at my house yesterday. That’s why we had a bug report</div><div class="">today.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The DVD contains an install script for Linux and Unix machines which is</div><div class="">essentially the same as the install script available at <a href="http://tug.org" class="">tug.org</a> for downloading</div><div class="">and installing TeX over the internet. It contains a different install package for</div><div class="">Windows, and MacTeX for OS X. But to save room, the MacTeX package on the</div><div class="">DVD doesn’t contain TeX Live. Instead, Mac users of the DVD get TeX Live by using</div><div class="">the Linux-Unix install script.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This install script asks a series of questions before installing TeX Live. But</div><div class="">the Mac portion of the DVD contains a “profile” file with the answers to these</div><div class="">questions. So Mac users of the DVD run one Unix command and get TeX Live</div><div class="">without answering any questions.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If the DVD install fails, there are (at least) two possible causes. One is that</div><div class="">the single line of shell code which I wrote doesn’t work on some machines.</div><div class="">(Users are asked to copy that line and paste it into Terminal.) The other is that</div><div class="">the large amount of Ruby and other code in the various TeX Live scripts</div><div class="">doesn’t work on some Macs. Debugging earlier today was essentially </div><div class="">looking for an error in my code. Since virtually every line of shell code I’ve</div><div class="">ever written didn’t work initially, this was a reasonable process.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">If we had proceeded further, the next step would have been to execute the</div><div class="">TeX Live install script, either from the DVD or over the internet, to see if</div><div class="">it failed. Then someone else would have to fix the error. But experience</div><div class="">shows that the odds of such an error are very small.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Dick Koch</div></body></html>