[Mac OS X TeX] Re: tetex size / sub packages / mirrors

[Gerben Wierda]

On Thursday, January 3, 2002, at 02:42 , William Adams wrote:

> Here's a thing I've wondered on for a while now---do we really need to
> have a complete tetex download everytime?

There has been talk in the TeX commmunity about this but I have not seen 
any good proposal so far. It would be possible to do something along 
fink lines of course, but nobody is doing it so far.

The problem is that splitting it up gives less control over what version 
of packages are used together. Having one big blob makes one thing 
certain: the different packages are in synch. There will be a lot of 
complexity involved in figuring out what packages rely on what other 
packages and such. And I definitely am not looking forward to supporting 
a lot of questions about 'missing' packages and such.

In other words: you get a very simple but rich install. That is nice for 
non-technical users who do not mind using a couple of tens of MB to get 
something which is relatively 'worry-free'. And supporting non-technical 
users with a simple (but agreed: rather fat) setup has been my goal.

Even if it would be feasible: making a lean setup where you can add what 
you want in a simple way is beyond my means (in terms of time to spend 
on this). I am only able to support this simple setup because others 
(read: Thomas Esser and some others) have done most of the work already. 
My contribution is very minor compared to theirs.

However: If there is a feasible and non timeconsuming method to do it, I 
am all in favour.

G


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