[luatex] Newbie question: how do create (and use) a lualatex.fmt with luatex-0.79.1?

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2014-05-05 at 23:51:03 +0200, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

 > On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Eduardo Ochs wrote:
 > > On Thu, May 1, 2014 at 8:20 PM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
 > >> Yes, this is the supposed way to build luatex (other than fetching it
 > >> from svn tag or TeX Live). But you are "not supposed" to build version
 > >> 0.79.0. Version 0.79.1 has been released precisely to solve the
 > >> problems you are experiencing.
 > >
 > > I have now been able to compile luatex-0.79.1 at my Debian box, but I
 > > can't figure out how to make it run as lualatex...
 > 
 > The easiest way by far is to install TeX Live 2014 from one of the
 > tlpretest mirrors.
 > 
 > https://www.tug.org/texlive/pretest.html
 > 
 > And from what I understood the TL 2014 testing packages for Debian are
 > ready as well.
 > 
 > The second-easiest thing is to replace the existing luatex binary and
 > run "fmtutil --all" or "sudo fmtutil-sys --all" (or "--byfmt lualatex"
 > or something similar) to generate the formats for you.
 > 
 > Please keep in mind that once you run those commands, you might need
 > to deleted the user-generated formats when you upgrade TeX Live.

Since TL2013 is frozen forever, I can't recommend the second approach
any more.  I already replaced binaries in TL-2013 with files from the
luatex repository when severe bugs had been fixed.  However, it's
always advisable to backup the original files before.  Since the
TL-2014 pretest is available, it's certainly not worth the trouble and
it's best to leave the TL-2013 installation untouched.

If you install TL-2014-pretest now, you don't have to install the
official TL-2014 release again.  It's sufficient to change the mirror.
You definitely don't gain anything by changing your TL-2013
installation though TL-2014 is already available.

Upgrading from pretest to the official release worked always smoothly
in the past.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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