[tex-live] tlmgr testing

George N. White III gnwiii at gmail.com
Sat Oct 4 13:53:34 CEST 2008


On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 7:53 AM, Victor Ivrii <vivrii at gmail.com> wrote:

> Update at 2008-10-06 at 6:02
>
> Riemann:victor101%sudo tlmgr update --all
> Password:
> tlmgr: installation location http://ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/2008
> newalg (collection-science): removed package
> bin-texlive: revision in http://ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/2008 is
> less then local revision, not updating!
> update: collection-science (10052 -> 10847) ... done
> /usr/texbin/tlmgr: gene-logic not installed locally
> update: ifxetex (10792 -> 10831) ... done
> update: logic (7340 -> 10848) ... done
> update: minutes (7340 -> 10832) ... done
> update: oberdiek (10690 -> 10833) ... done
> update: pax (10802 -> 10843) ... done
> update: pax.universal-darwin (10802 -> 10843) ... !!!Error:
> non-existent bin/universal-darwin/pdfannotextractor
> done
> update: pst2pdf (10791 -> 10835) ... done
> texlive.infra: revision in http://ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet/2008
> is less then local revision, not updating!
>
>
> My observations show that
> 1) newalg was really removed (change of tlmgr behavior)
> 2)  pax.universal-darwin: link was broken (it was to script
> pdfannotextractor.texlua) now it is fixed to pdfannotextractor.pl

$ tlmgr  update --all
tlmgr: installation location /Data/opt/tex/texlive/svn/Master
newalg (collection-science): removed package
update: bin-texlive (10829 -> 10842) ... running post remove action
for bin-texlive
running post install action for bin-texlive
done
update: collection-science (10052 -> 10847) ... done
/usr/local/texlive/2008/bin/i386-linux/tlmgr: gene-logic not installed locally
[...]
update: pax.i386-linux (10802 -> 10843) ... !!!Error: non-existent
bin/i386-linux/pdfannotextractor
done
[..]

$ ls -l bin/i386-linux/pdfannotextractor
lrwxrwxrwx 1 gwhite bod 49 2008-10-04 08:30
bin/i386-linux/pdfannotextractor ->
../../texmf-dist/scripts/pax/pdfannotextractor.pl

> 3) gene-logic which belongs if I understand correct to
> collection-science had  not been installed and %tlmgr install
> gene-logic was required (change of tlmgr behavior):
>[...]
> So we see two big changes: actual removal and  not installing new
> packages into installed categories. While I understand logic beyond
> removal (keeping copies consistent) it may be a problem for those who
> administrate texlive for a large group of people: in my Dept there are
> few my esteemed colleagues with a very little knowledge and very big
> mouths who will come screaming and yelling if their favorite package
> disappears and manual installation to texmf-local in 5 minutes will
> not serve as excuse!
>
> Non-installation is even more problematic: it breaks consistency.

tlmgr should check that all the packages in the updated collection-science
are installed.  It would be nice if that can be done automatically whenever
a collection is updated.

> PS Having few computers to administrate I can verify my observations easily
> PPS Agreeing (probably foolishly) to administrate TL and thus
> associated texmf-local on our Dept server I am not afraid of big
> mouths of some of my esteemed colleagues (who will probably use
> coexisting tetex not being able to switch the path) but for real
> sysadmins situation could by yucky
>
> PPPS Now a bit unrelated: Imagine large Dept with a lot of machines
> running TeXLive. Now one needs to install on all these machines some
> package which cannot be included to TL. It would be very nice if
> 1) tlmgr had a sibling which would be able to do similar things but
> using texmf-local as an installation and some local Dept server as a
> source
> 2) It would require a public release of the packager for the packages.
>
> I mean: TL team just drops these pieces of s/w (with instructions but
> without responsibility) to the public which would be free to bork
> their texmf-local  using a new tool

Where I work we also have "private" packages that need to end up in
texmf-local.   Some of the issues Victor has encountered can be
avoided by using tlmgr only to maintain a "master" texlive.  Once all
is working and any private packages have been added manually, this
can be rsynced (during off hours) to the version used by others on
shared systems.  There are, however, those with personal
systems who want to manage packages themselves, but still need
texmf-local bits, and some of those bits belong to scientific organizations
with users scattered around the globe, so I'm also hoping for a way to
manage private packages with tlmgr.

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


More information about the tex-live mailing list