[texhax] Tex Live Question

[Tom Schneider]

Sally:

> I have a question about TexLive software.  I don't know much about
> it, but would like to buy it for my son, who is a math undergrad. 
> He uses an imac (OS 9). He wants the program for writing math
> equations/papers.

LaTeX is a great solution for that!

> Will TexLive work with OS9?  Or will he need OSX?

I don't know the answer to that, but if you can at all afford to get
him to OSX you will do an enormous service to his education.  The
difference is night to day.  I am very happy that I switched at home,
good riddence to OS 9!!   OSX is a modern Unix operating system
(secure and stable, no viruses).  He can get a huge ton of open source
(aside from latex, which is a great idea).  Start by getting fink

http://fink.sourceforge.net/

some useful programs you can get with fink:

wget
xv
imagemagick

It may also be possible to put Linux on the machine he has, in which
case it may cost very little.  (I don't have experience with that
though.)

> Also, I know it is free to download, but he isn't very good at that
> kind of thing, and it seems (from my reading of the LaTex websites)
> that the program can be tricky to download and get running. If
> purchased through you, would it be easier to install and would clear
> instructions be included?

He should learn to do these things, downloading is a modern method. 
Fink makes much of the work easier.  I didn't see that one could set
up LaTeX with fink, but if someone did that it would be an incredible
service to Mac users everywhere!

Tom

  Dr. Thomas D. Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology
  Molecular Information Theory Group
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms at ncifcrf.gov
  permanent email: toms at alum.mit.edu (use only if first address fails)
  http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/