[OS X TeX] Local additions and multiple TeX distributions

[Alan Munn]

At 11:44 AM +0100 3/8/07, Bruno Voisin wrote:
>Le 7 mars 07 à 22:55, Alan Munn a écrit :
>
>>Now that I've gotten around to updating my 
>>older teTeX distribution, I now find myself 
>>with two and a quarter TeX distributions: 
>>Gerbens' based on TeX Live, (which I installed 
>>with i-installer) the MacTeX TL distribution 
>>and the leftover texmf.local from my old teTeX 
>>distribution.  So here's a few of questions:
>>
>>Since I have up-to-date versions via 
>>i-installer of Ghostscript, fondu etc., I 
>>didn't install any of these when I installed 
>>MacTeX. Is this the correct strategy?
>
>You can also let MacTex install its versions of 
>GhostScript, Fondu and the like. These are 
>identical to the most recent versions installed 
>by i-Installer, and the corresponding receipts 
>are also installed by MacTeX, allowing 
>transparent mix of i-Installer and MacTeX 
>installations.

Ok, this is good to know.

>
>>Some things that were in my texmf.local are now 
>>included in TL, but not in Gerben's 
>>distribution.  So I guess I need to selectively 
>>copy what was in my texmf.local to the TL 
>>texmf-local, right?  (I have multiple users 
>>using TeX, so I don't generally install things 
>>in ~/Library/texmf except for testing purposes)
>>
>>Am I getting myself into a lot of hassles with 
>>two distributions, since I will need to make 
>>local additions in two places, or can I make 
>>texmf-local a symbolic link to (the new) 
>>texmf.local (or vice versa)?  Are there 
>>advantages to making the link in one direction 
>>or the other (or is is just a bad idea?)
>
>Do *not* make /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/ a 
>symlink to /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.local/: the 
>texmf.local directory of gwTeX is not quite the 
>same as it used to be in teTeX:
>
>- In teTeX, texmf.local was the repository of 
>both user-added files and files generated at 
>install time (global map files such as 
>psfonts.map and pdftex.map, format files such as 
>tex.fmt, hyphenation configuration files such as 
>language.dat, and so forth).
>
>- In gwTeX, the repository for user additions is 
>texmf.pkgs, and the repository for generated 
>files is texmf.local.
>
>Hence, by making/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/ 
>a symlink to /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.local/, you 
>would break MacTeX by making it use the 
>generated files of gwTeX instead of its own 
>generated files within 
>/usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf-var/.

Thanks a lot, Bruno.  This is very helpful, and 
saved me from some major headaches had I gone on 
with my plan.

>
>Currently I think the only safe solution is, 
>sadly, to maintain two local trees, one in 
>/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/ for MacTeX and 
>the other in /usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.pkgs/ for 
>gwTeX, taking into account the differences 
>between the default contents of MacTeX and 
>gwTeX. For example, support for the Adobe Euro 
>fonts is built-in within MacTeX but is absent 
>from gwTeX; as a consequence, my texmf-local for 
>MacTeX does not include the Adobe Euro support 
>files, while my texmf.pkgs for gwTeX does.
>
>The above, of course, provided you have the two 
>TeX distros, MacTeX and gwTeX, installed 
>simultaneously. This situation is not optimal, 
>and is confusing for the users, and I think that 
>one distro will prevail in the long run, making 
>it unnecessary for users to worry about such 
>things.

I agree.  I guess I was getting a little spooked 
by what seemed to be various problems that were 
arising with MacTeX but not with gwTeX, which is 
why I would like both for the moment.  Gerben's 
distribution seems to be rock solid.

One question, though.  Shouldn't I continue to 
put my local additions into the gwTeX/texmf.local 
directory rather than gwTeX/texmf,pkgs (which I 
thought was for Gerben's extra additions.)

>
>Another (untested) possibility: create a 
>directory /Library/TeX/Local/, say, and put 
>there your local additions, mimicking the 
>structure of texmf trees inside it; then edit 
>texmf.cnf for each distribution, namely in 
>/usr/local/gwTeX/texmf.cnf for gwTeX set:
>
>TEXMFPKGS=/Library/TeX/Local
>
>and in /usr/local/texlive/2007/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf for MacTeX set:
>
>TEXMFLOCAL=/Library/TeX/Local

No, I won't attempt this.  Since most of the 
extras I install can be installed with mpm, it's 
not very hard to keep two sets of local additions.

Thanks again.

Alan

-- 
Alan Munn 
amunn at msu.edu
Department of Linguistics                             
and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages   Fax.  +1-517-432-2736
Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824       Tel.  +1-517-355-7491

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