[OS X TeX] Installing RTF2LaTeX2e

[André Bellaïche]

Le 16 juil. 06 à 03:21, Justin C. Walker a écrit :

>
> On Jul 15, 2006, at 17:13 , André Bellaïche wrote:
>
>>
>> Thanks for your help. I have made much progress. In fact, the  
>> problem lies in Mac/Unix, not in any TeX distribution or tool.
>
> It's probably fairer to say that the problem, dear Yorick, is not  
> in Mac/Unix, but in your understanding of the lower (Unixy) layers  
> of the system.
>
>> Maybe I should post on another list, but I want first this  
>> installation problem sorted out. I work on a Imac PPC, with MacOS  
>> X 10.4.7
>>
>> What I have found is that :
>>
>> -- The file /usr/local/rtf2latex2e/rtf2latex2e.bin is not  
>> considered as an application, although ls -l gives :
>>                                                         - 
>> rwxrwxrwx   1 andre  admin  410356 Jan 28  2004 rtf2latex2e.bin
>
> This information does not really reflect what is going on.  Can you  
> try, in a Terminal window,
>    file /usr/local/rtf2latex2e/rtf2latex2e.bin

The answer is : Mach-O executable ppc
>
>> If you go to /usr/local/rtf2latex2e and type rtf2latex2e or  
>> rtf2latex2e.bin, you get :
>>                                                         -bash:  
>> rtf2latex2e: command not found
>>                                                         -bash:  
>> rtf2latex2e.bin: command not found
>
> This may be, as already mentioned, due to how your "path" variable  
> is configured.  Try this, again in a terminal window:
>   /usr/local/rtf2latex2e/rtf2latex2e.bin

It works : $   /usr/local/rtf2latex2e/rtf2latex2e.bin   * rtf2latex2e  
usage: rtf2latex2e [-t <TeX-map>] <rtf file>
* output file will be *.tex.

>
>> -- No one of the files in /usr/local/bin is considered as an  
>> application. Go to this directory and type the name of any file,  
>> say ps2pdf, you get
>>                                            -bash: ps2pdf: command  
>> not found
>> instead af a error message saying "filename missing".
>
> This indicates, to me, that '/usr/local/bin' is not in your "path"  
> variable.  A bit more info below.
>
>> -- All the files in /usr/bin are executables : try 'zip' and you  
>> get  full instructions for use of 'zip'.
>>
>> Question : how to make files with all the needed  x's in /usr/ 
>> local and subdirectories real executables, just as the files in / 
>> usr/bin ?
>
> They already are; it's just that the shell uses your "path"  
> variable to locate an executable: when you type, say, "ps2pdf", it  
> looks through all the directories in $PATH until it finds an  
> executable with this name.  It then tries to execute that file.   
> The error you get (as above) indicates that the shell did not find  
> any file named "ps2pdf" in the list of directories it uses.
>
> If the file were found, marked as executable, but was not really  
> executable, you would get an error like "cannot execute binary  
> file" or something to indicate that it tried, but failed for some  
> reason.

O.K. Fully understood now.
>
>> Another question : it seems that the password neded to log as root  
>> is not the same as the one which allows you to sudo. True? Or is  
>> my computer sick? (I had forgot the root password, so I had to  
>> change it, using the installation disk. But the system would not  
>> accept the new root password as a sudo password.)
>
> The 'sudo' command requires you to verify that you are "you" by  
> providing your password.  It keeps a list of authorized users  
> ("admin users", in Mac OS X terms), and these users are permitted  
> to act as root for the execution of certain commands.
>
> 'sudo' is provided so that you do not have to enable the "root"  
> account, which is generally A Bad Thing, unless you are happy  
> driving stick shift, and programming in octal :-}
>
> If you haven't forgotten your password, you can "sudo bash" to get  
> a root-enabled shell, and then use the "passwd" command to change  
> root's password.

I'll do it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Justin


Thanks for this very precise Unix lesson. I needed it.

André

------------------------- 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 Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/