[OS X TeX] migration from Fink to Gerben Wierda's TeX

[Gerben Wierda]

>
> Am 22.02.2005 um 22:56 schrieb Andrei Sobolevskii:
>
>> Thus the question: what could be advantages (if any) of migrating to
>> Gerben Wierda's TeX?  Do you think it would be a good idea?  For one
>> thing, it seems that the latter TeX distribution is supported better
>> in terms of getting up-to-date packages.  Is that right?  On the other
>> hand, nobody wants to destabilize an already working setup. Could both
>> TeXs live together on my Mac without conflicts for some transitional
>> period?  Did anybody perform this kind of migration?
>
> Although it will work to have both teTeX distributions (you only need
> to handle $TEXMF and $PATH or $path, and this might be in shells and in
> Emacs easier than in TeXShop

You need to set $TEXMF and (though I think this still happens in Fink)
$MANPATH (is handled by manpath.config). The only thing that influences
your choice is $PATH

If you want to use my redistribution of TeX in combination with Fink for
other tools, you can uninstall tetex in fink and install system-tetex in
fink. This installs an empty placeholder in fink that assumes you have a
TeX elsewhere. This way you do not need to change any environment
variable.

If you want to have both available *and* want to be able to switch, you
can add the path to my redistribution at the beginning of your $PATH
variable, but this is slightly less secure that having it at the end. It
is however necessary to work with my redistribution if you also want the
fink distribution to be available. If you want to switch to fink's, then
you only have to remove my install from the beginning of your $PATH.

Note that, though I disagree with fink's choice for putting itself at the
front of the PATH for security reasons (though I understand it is
necessary for their consistency model), I have nothing against fink (some
people think I do). But I do rather dislike to help people only to find
out after spending some time that the problem was that not my
distribution, but some other software was called. Therefore, in case of
problems: if you have more software installed, be gentle with requests for
assistance in my direction ;-)

G

PS. I sometimes think it would be nice to have the same amount of people
working on i-Packages as there are maintaining fink packages (or at least
1 or 2 more). I can only do so much singlehandedly.

--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>