TUG Unix CD: HTML documentation

[Pierre MacKay]

   >>>>> "SR" == Sebastian Rahtz <s.rahtz@elsevier.co.uk> writes:

   SR> Ulrik Vieth writes:

   >> texmf/doc/html/icons/invisible.xbm
   SR> non-ISO.


   OK, I bite. I find this whole ISO business complete nonsense for a CD
   targeted to major Unix platforms.

   As far as I understand, if there is a file foo45678.bar on the CD, and
   the CD is mounted with Rock Ridge Extension in effect (as sebastian
   wrote it should have), a request for foo456789.bar will not succeed.
   If that's dead wrong 'though, the rest of this mail is garbage.

   Let's suppose we have interesting styles with non-ISO file names,
   e.g., chapterbib.sty or cwebarray.sty. Their user interface is very
   clearly documented in several papers, sometimes even books:

	   \usepackage{chapterbib}
	   \usepackage{cwebarray}

   If these files are put on the CD as chapterb.sty or cwebarra.sty,
   LaTeX won't find them. Bad luck, isn't it? So we prevent the usage of
   such styles just because some idiot at ISO insisted on such brain-dead
   standards!

Funny you should say that after what the idiots (my near neighbors)
who designed DOS file names forced us to do with the TDS.

The most general answer is to use a postinstall script like the ones
that the SVR4 package use.  Then you can name the stuff on the CDROM
anything you like and provide a rationalized directory structure
somewhere with the names got right.  

It would theoretically be possible to mount the CDROM directly on
the $TEXMF mount point, but it would sure be slow.  THat means that
virtually all users will want to extract the files onto a faster
storage device.  In the course of the extraction and installation, or
just after it, the rational names and directory structures can
be applied.

I am doing that with the Solaris2.5 stuff.  The regular files
are (witn a few exceptions for purely Unix references) all kept
to 8+3 names, but the complete pkgmap links them to a more
reasonable organization---supplier first, *.300pk, all the stuff
that got thrown out with the DOS bathwater.  

   Fight ISO! Go out on the street! Come to a rally!

I must admit that sounds like fun.  But I'd rather fight DogWindows
first.

   Make a usable TeX CD... :-)

By the way, you are welcome to the 2.5 executables I put together.
It's kpathsea2.6 stuff, all done up into shared object libraries.

I hope to get to looking at the new web2c stuff fairly soon.

I would still suggest that people look at SVR4 packaging.  The objections
I have seen to it assume several things about the system that are
not true.  It is not Solaris-specific, it is not designed solely
to deal with packages full of binaries, and it does not force the
installer to put everything into /opt or into any other place, at least
not in the Solaris2.5 version.  Even the more rigid Solaris2.4 version
can be beaten into submission.

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To:     mackay@cs.washington.edu		Pierre A. MacKay
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