[tex-live] More on texlive configuration

[Ken Brooks]

gnwiii at gmail.com wrote:
>> 2. SELFAUTO* won't work for any purpose at all, so I should customize
>> texmf.cnf and change every SELFAUTO entry therein, to something more
>> definite.
>>
>> Does this sound right?
> 
> Well, SELFAUTO* could be used.  RH Fedora Core 5 teTeX uses (the
> redundantly redundant) compile-time default:
> 
> TEXMFCNF = 
> {$SELFAUTOLOC,$SELFAUTODIR,$SELFAUTOPARENT}{,{/share,}/texmf{-local,}/web2c};$TETEXDIR;/usr/share/texmf/web2c;/usr/share/texmf/web2c 
> 
> 
> which seems to miss /usr/local/share/texmf/web2c.   There aren't any
> uses of SELFAUTO* in the effective parts of the texmf.cnf
> 
> Something like:
> 
> TEXMFCNF = 
> {$SELFAUTOLOC,$SELFAUTODIR,$SELFAUTOPARENT}{,{/local/share,/share,}/texmf{-local,}/web2c} 
> 
> 
> would support a site-specific "/usr/local/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf".
> 

Let's see if I understand this right.  If the executable is in /usr/bin, 
then SELFAUTOPARENT will resolve to /usr, and the above path will include 
  /usr/local/share/texmf, /usr/local/share/texmf-local, /usr/share/texmf, 
and /usr/share/texmf-local among others, giving my downstream user all 
redundant sorts of places in which to put his customizations without 
changing /usr/share/texmf/<anything>.

Now, why the desire for .../texmf-local if /usr/local/share/texmf is 
already available?

Thanks,

Ken Brooks
rPath, Inc.