[tldistro] TexLive on MSYS2

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Naveen,

> I am from MSYS2[0], and I have some plans to package TexLive. MSYS2 has a package manager called Pacman, which is a Windows port of Archlinux[1] Pacman.

Hopefully you have used TeX Live yourself and are comfortable with the
necessary configuration files etc. A bit outdated but might be helpful
is my presentation on distributing texlive
	https://www.preining.info/talks/fosdem13.pdf

>Now, I am wondering why I had to make many symlinks, which Archlinux makes[5].

Hmm, which shows you are not very versed with TeX in general ...
If you call 
	latex
what is called normally is the *engine* behind it, normally pdfetex, and
that engine (actual binary code) loads the format dump "latex.fmt".

This is automatized via those links, if you call pdfetex via the latex
link, the latex.fmt will automatically be loaded.

> After that, I moved to `texlive-core`[6], and it confused me a bit. For sources, archlinux uses sources from it's own website[7], and I was wondering what it was. After, downloading them I found they were clone of CTAN with archive of packages(I think picked randomly picked?). This made me wonder whether I should use the same from archlinux? Will it cause any problems? I have also, made a repo[8], where there is a python script which will create something similar to those. I wasn't able to match things from Archlinux, so I selected `scheme-medium` as an option. I still wonder whether is that necessary.

No idea what they are doing, but my guess is they are pulling from the
systems/texlive/tlnet

> Moving on, I found some extra things in in Archlinux package[6], like `texlive-core.fmts`, `texlive-core.maps`,`texmfcnf.lua`,` texmf.cnf` , and I have no idea on how those things should created, what should it do? I would appreciate if any helps me here on whether I should have then also in those pacakge, if yes how to create them?

Umpf again ... the first one defines which format dumps (see above) are
created, the second ones defines which fonts are available, the other
two are the main configuration files...

You might start actually using TeX Live and trying to configure things
before trying to package it.

Best

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                              https://www.preining.info
Fujitsu                 + IFMGA Guide + TU Wien + TeX Live + Debian Dev
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