[OS X TeX] Re: End of i-Installer

[Claus Gerhardt]

Thanks Dick for your efforts and the good news!

I think most tex users, and certainly I, don't need upgrades  
throughout the year of binaries and latex packages - in fact  
upgrading and installing latex packages, if it should be necessary,  
is easy and foolproof and can be done by the individual user alone.  
If MacTeX would change whenever there is a new TeXLive version would  
be more than sufficient.

In the long run it might be even prudent not to tax the time and  
energy of the volunteers too much, lest they might feel exhausted and  
unable to offer their generous help anymore. Bruno described such an  
event in a different  mail, though I think he has to blame himself in  
that particular example.

Claus


On Nov 12, 2006, at 2:05, Richard Koch wrote:

> Folks,
>
> Here is a piece of good news.
>
> Sheepishly, I confess that I've never looked at TeXLive.
>
> This afternoon I discovered that there is a very straightforward  
> script to
> install the 2005 version of the distribution.
> TeXLive has a very large number of "schemes," that is, predefined  
> package
> collections, so it isn't necessary to install everything. I picked  
> a "medium"
> install.
>
> Then I made a MacTeX package using Gerben's stuff for ghostscript and
> imagemagick, but TexLive for TeX. The package works just as it always
> does, setting paper size, setting the PATH for command line calls  
> using
> Gerben's code as now, but with  tetex replaced with the texlive.
>
> All of my caveats from an earlier email turn out to be irrelevant.  
> Environmental
> variables are optional, ~/Library/texmf still works, binaries for  
> both powerpc
> and intel are installed, format files are processor independent.
>
> TeXShop, LaTeXiT, and BibDesk work fine after redefining the path to
> TeX binaries, TeX + Ghostscript still works because Gerben's simpdftex
> script is in TeXLive, etc. To make sure, I installed and tested on  
> both Intel
> and PowerPC. ... worked like a charm
>
> ConTeXt worked, but XeTeX wasn't in the 2005 version. Luckily Jonathan
> is adding it to the 2006 version, so this won't be a problem.
>
> Incidentally, the TeXLive documentation thanks Gerben in several  
> different
> places for helping with Mac OS X, making appropriate modifications for
> Mac OS X, etc. So I felt right at home and much more confortable.
>
> I think we can relax. Gerben's packages will be up to date through
> January, and viable a lot longer than that. This gives us time to  
> merge his
> material into a TeXLive install. It seems to me that we need to
>
> 	1) find others to maintain i-Packages and i-Installer
>
> 	2) if this proves absolutely impossible, find another way to make
> 	system upgrades throughout the year, since TeXLive has no upgrade
> 	procedure
>
> but also
>
> 	3) see if we can get TeXLive in the future to construct a "scheme"  
> for
> 	us, based on Gerben's extensive work. My rough package surely has
> 	lots of missing fonts, style files, hyphenation patterns, etc.  
> Thus there
> 	is plenty of work ahead of us. I think we should get that work  
> into the
> 	TeXLive tree, so in the future we don't have to modify their stuff  
> but can just
> 	take their work (i.e., their scheme based on Gerben's work) and go.
> 	
> Dick Koch
> koch at math.uoregon.edu
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