[tex-live] file and viewer commands on OS/2 and macos (was: texdoc.tlu)

[Zdenek Wagner]

2008/6/8 Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha at web.de>:
> Frank Küster writes:
>  > Frank Küster <frank at kuesterei.ch> wrote:
>  >
>  > >>      if (os.type == "windows") then ....
>  > >
>  > > It is done like this already, except that I didn't know of os.type (or
>  > > maybe it wasn't available one year ago),
>  >
>  > I've now read about os.type, and have a view questions:
>  >
>  > - is it possible to distinguish OS/2, and if not what will it return?
>  >   msdos?
>
> Hi Frank,
> os.type() returns either "unix", "windows", or "msdos".
>
> I suppose that on OS/2 it returns "msdos".
>
> OS/2 is collaborative work of IBM and Microsoft.  Microsoft gave it up
> when Bill Gates came to the conclusion that a multi-tasking OS is only
> good for mainframes, not for personal computers.  But AFAIK the most
> commands work on both systems.
>
>  > - What would be useful commands for removing a file or directory on
>  >   OS/2?
>
> I don't know why you are so much concerned about OS2 and MSDOG.
> None of these systems is maintained anymore for centuries.  There are
> no actively maintained TeX distributions for these platforms any more.
>
> Stupid question: Do the old, unmaintaned TeX distributions for OS/2
> and MSDOG provide a texlua engine???  This is essential if you want
> to support these systems.  My opinion:  Forget them.
>
Certainly emTeX is obsolete and dead. Jun Sawataishi prepared another
distribution based upon teTeX and his own tool for porting programs
from Linux. It heavily uses bash scripts and perl scripts, both bash
and perl are ported to OS/2. Jun Sawataishi works on it irregularly
when he thinks that some new version is important for him. I suggested
to him to contact TL developers but he never did, everything is
available from his web site only. Although all his tools are freely
available and their use for compiling TeX is described, I have no time
to do it myself. He did not compile XeTeX and I am afraid that it will
be next to impossible due to lack of support of Unicode in OS/2. One
day Jun Sawataishi may decide that luatex is important but nobody
knows whether it happens.

>  > - What would be useful commands for viewers on MacOSX? Ideally something
>  >   which reflects the settings of the user, e.g. whether (s)he wants
>  >   Preview or Adobe Reader for PDF files?
>
> I suppose that Preview is part of OSX and should be used by default on
> OSX.  However, it should be possible to switch to AR somehow.
>
> All the non-Adobe PDF engines only support a subset of the PDF
> standard.  A user should always be able to make AR the default
> browser.
>
> Regards,
>  Reinhard
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
> Marschnerstr. 25
> D-30167 Hannover                              mailto:reinhard.kotucha at web.de
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>



-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz