[OS X TeX] Finally we are grown up

Claus Gerhardt gerhardt at math.uni-heidelberg.de
Sat Nov 18 17:40:12 CET 2006


In this situation I can't see any difference to the past: Ask this  
list for help. After all, tex is still tex, and TeXLive's structure  
and tree is being used by any distribution. Apart from the  
installation process (which is superb in TeXLive), Gerben's main  
achievement had been in supplying additional tools, which are not  
necessary to run tex, like gs, imagemagick, some fonts. I guess I  
installed gs and imagemagick, though of course I could also use  
Apple's distiller for ps->pdf.

As a test I ran htlatex in texlive2005, and it worked out of the box.

Anyway, these additional programs and packages have nothing to do  
with the tex installation, and they could be provided in the future  
by Gerben himself, MacTeX or someone else, or we could continue to  
use the present versions.

The general anxiety after Gerben's announcement, let me remind you of  
your own remarks, had nothing to with the possible loss of these  
additional goodies, instead we were afraid that we had lost the  
vehicle for an easy and reliable installation of such a complex  
software guaranteeing a perfectly working tex environment.

However, after I installed TeXLive 2005 out of the box myself and  
worked with it, I come to conclusion that we actually are better off  
now than before, because I, e.g., had been aware of the existence of  
TeXLive, but never thought of installing it myself, because of all  
these rumours, which actually resulted in some kind of brainwashing,  
that Gerben's installation was the only way to go on a Mac.

There is at least one better way, try it out for yourself.

Claus




On Nov 18, 2006, at 16:57, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 17 nov. 06 à 17:30, Claus Gerhardt a écrit :
>
>> I am feeling much more at ease and for the first time capable of  
>> handling the tex distributions myself: I moved from the  
>> passenger's seat to the driver's seat.
>
> Yes, but for the moment you're still driving along the motorway,  
> with no incentive to diverge from the out-of-the-box TeXLive  
> install. If at some point you decide to leave the motorway for a  
> side road -- say you want to perform some customization -- then you  
> might as well you feel very much alone.
>
> Bruno Voisin------------------------- Info --------------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
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