[texhax] can't find latex.fmt

[debian]

Please,

I installed texlive.2007 (from the tug.org iso), having previously ran

pdfeTeX 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.4)
kpathsea version 3.5.4

for some time.

Now I execute: latex my.simple.file

and eventually it reports:

I can't find the format file `latex.fmt'!

I have googled and googled and googled.  I have tried:

sudo fmtutil-sys --all 

and

sudo fmtutil --all

to no avail

fmtutil --byfmt latex 

also fails

Am I best to start over again ?  I have spent hours and hours on this.
I am worried that the suggestions on google, may not refer to my
version and setup.   (I am quite content with the defaults.)

set reports:

TEXDIR=/usr/local/texlive/2007
TEXINPUTS=
TEXMFHOME=/u/usr/joe/texmf
TEXMFLOCAL=/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local
TEXMFSYSVAR=/usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-var



Joe McCool