[OS X TeX] Installing the powerdot and xkeyval packages - Mac newbie

[Hans Marius Eikseth]

Hello folks,
please bear with a Mac utter newbie as I lay my problem before you:

This weekend I caved into my curiosity, and bought a MacBook. I was
determined to get TeX and friends working to my liking, and was pleased to
note a MacTeX user community seemed alive and kicking. Now, after installing
TeX using i-Installer, I've discovered that what I hoped was going to be a
smooth switch from MikTeX (Windows) isn't so easy for a user like me.

What I need, what I want, is a working installation of the Powerdot package
in my MacTeX distribution. 'No problem' I hear the Mac savvy say, but I'm
drowning in documentation and uncertainty about when (if) I should override
read/write/permissions in my texmf.local tree - or if such packages should
go elsewhere altogether.

(I cannot use i-Installer, as this is based on teTeX, and as such last
release is from 2005 - and with a development lag, I don't believe powerdot
made it in there. The TeX engine complained anyway ;) )

Now, trying to put the powerdot.cls and associated files into the right
(TDS-compliant) places, I had to resort to issuing a 'sudo mkdir
/usr/..<snip>../tex/latex/powerdot' command [not really knowing what I was
doing], and I think I also had to change some ownership to force these files
in place (only read permissions, no write)[previous comment apply]. Since
this is a private laptop, I figured I might try, but I have this nagging
feeling that I should have done this in a more proper manner.

Now, trying a typeset (after texhash was issued), TeX still didn't find what
it was looking for. texhash told me it skipped those texmf.local directories
anyway, since those were read-only. I then directed a mktexlsr (spelling?)
towards the 'bottom' (ie, powerdot) directory, and now TeX could find the
powerdot.cls file - which (as expected) complains that current installation
of xkeyval package is too old for powerdot's liking.

Before I do more harm to my TeX installation (and get bogged down in
further, unforeseen incompatibilities from 'installing' xkeyval), can anyone
out there secondguess if I've gone awry already, or if there is a better way
to accomplish my goal of getting an installation of the Powerdot package?

Best regards,
Hans Marius Eikseth


------------------------- Helpful Info -------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
List Reminders & Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/