[tex-live] which version of gs is recommended?

George N. White III gnwiii at gmail.com
Fri Jun 8 15:06:02 CEST 2007


On 6/8/07, Thanh Han The <hanthethanh at gmail.com> wrote:

> this question is slightly off-topic, but since the gs gurus
> are here: I am looking for a version of gs to install for
> use with mediawiki on a remote server. I took a look at
> available versions of gs on the gs website, but it didn't
> make me wiser. Can someone please recommend a version that
> is suitable for my purpose (stable, sleek, doesn't have to
> be up-to-date, X11 support excluded)?

For the past couple years, more bugs in gs come thru the
system libraries and compilers than from the gs code.

To give you an idea of what is in widespread use, my debian system has

$ gs-afpl -h
AFPL Ghostscript 8.53 (2005-10-20)

$ gs-esp -h
ESP Ghostscript 8.15.3 (2006-08-25)

See: <http://www.cups.org/espgs/index.php> for the status of ESP
ghostscript.  This was a fork that has become very popular with the
linux distros, and should be robust.  It is being merged with AFPL
gs.  The merged version isn't out yet, so I'd be tempted to grab a
recent source for ESP 8.15.4 and built it with a minimal set of devices.

More at: <http://www.openprinting.org/download/printing/esp-gpl-ghostscript-merge/README>

http://www.cups.org/espgs/software.php?VERSION=8.15.4&\
FILE=ghostscript/8.15.4/espgs-8.15.4-source.tar.bz2

To get sleek, disable devices you don't need in the top-level
Makefile.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia


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