[XeTeX] Linux setup question (follow up)

[Dennis Drescher]

Thanks Pete! I think I have this figured out. If you don't mind, please 
bear with me a little while longer while I go over what I think is the 
proper procedure for creating the xetex.fmt file.

Peter Dyballa wrote:

> And again it's obvious that you did read, though, but did not 
> understand. It's *either* fmtutil-sys or fmtutil. And because you 
> obviously do not know enough of what you're doing and do not intend to 
> learn you should not touch fmtutil.

Well actually, I do intend to learn, that's why I joined this list. :-) 
Thanks for your insightful commentary. I find your candor invigorating!

>> Both of these utilities did create a bunch of .fmt files in both these 
>> locations. However, they did *not* create the xetex.fmt
> 
> Of course not! Did you enable them? Did you look into the install-xetex 
> and rebuild-formats scripts that came with the xetex source? Did you at 
> least notice which utility created which files to learn a bit?

I guess I didn't tell you that I did not install XeTeX from source. 
Sorry if you were confused. I used the packages available from the 
scripts.sil.org website. (http://scripts.sil.org/xetex_linux)

>> So, my question at this point is, how do I get a xetex.fmt file, in 
>> the right place, the right way?
> 
> Either add these three lines to fmtutil_cnf (à la teTeX):
> 
> # XeTeX formats
> xetex xetex - *xetex.ini
> xelatex xetex language.dat *xelatex.ini
> 
> or those four lines (à la TeX Live):
> 
> # XeTeX-based formats using etex, eplain, and latex macros
> xetex        xetex   -            -etex xetex.ini
> xeplain      xetex   language.dat    -etex xeplain.ini
> xelatex      xetex   language.dat    -etex xelatex.ini
> 
> Invoke
> 
> sudo fmtutil-sys --enablefmt xetex
> sudo fmtutil-sys --enablefmt xelatex
> sudo fmtutil-sys --byfmt xetex
> sudo fmtutil-sys --byfmt xelatex
> 
> The last two commands create the xetex and xelatex FMT files. Fmtutil 
> also understands options to create all missing FMT files at once.

Unfortunately, the procedure you described above does not work on Ubuntu 
Edgy. However, it did get me going in the right direction.

The fmtutil.cnf file is actually not the right file to make additional 
formating config references. In the header of 
/var/lib/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf is says:

### This file was automatically generated by update-fmtutil.
#
# Please do not edit it directly. If you want to add or change
# anything here, please have a look at the files in:
#
#    /etc/texmf/fmt.d/
#
# and invoke update-fmtutil.
#
###

With that in mind this is what I did to create the xetex.fmt file on my 
system:

1) Invoke:

	sudo gedit /etc/texmf/fmt.d/00tex.cnf

2) Add the following lines near the bottom of the file:

	# XeTeX-based formats using etex, eplain, and latex macros
	xetex        xetex   -               -etex xetex.ini
	xeplain      xetex   language.dat    -etex xeplain.ini
	xelatex      xetex   language.dat    -etex xelatex.ini

3) Invoke:

	update-fmtutil

4) Invoke:

	sudo fmtutil-sys --enablefmt xetex
	sudo fmtutil-sys --enablefmt xelatex
	sudo fmtutil-sys --byfmt xetex
	sudo fmtutil-sys --byfmt xelatex

5) Rebuild the ls-R database file so the new xetex.fmt file can be seen 
by the system. Invoke:

	sudo -H texhash

My XeTeX system seems to be running now so I'm assuming this is "a" 
right way to create the xetex.fmt file. If not, please let me know what 
I need to do differently. Thanks.

Regards,

Dennis