[OS X TeX] MacTeX DVD has arrived (DANTE edition) -- What should be paid attention for?

[Herbert Schulz]

On Dec 9, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Juergen Fenn wrote:

>
>
> Alex Hamann schrieb:
>
>> Alternative: install the "Basic" version of MacTeX. Smaller, but with
>> tlmgr you just add what you tink is missing.
>
> I think that's a good point for Friedrich's worries about his download
> quota (although I have to add that this is not a quite common  
> problem in
> this country, as broadband flats have become quite common nowadays).
>

Howdy,

The only thing I've heard about that some folks miss in BasicTeX are  
some fonts although that obviously isn't the only thing missing. Once  
tlmgr is updated (but see below) you can get those missing fonts  
(basically ``Laserwriter 35'' fonts) by using

sudo tlmgr update collection-fontsrecommended

which is about a 20MB download (on top of the ~50MB BasicTeX). Only  
download it if you need it though.

If possible, I'd wait a short while because an updated MacTeX and  
BasicTeX should be coming relatively soon (I have no idea exactly when  
though). These will have all the updates up to the time of production,  
including the latest tlmgr which won't need updating before use.

>> Concerning the bug: just make sure to update tlmgr first and all  
>> other
>> packages only afterwards. (See this list for details)
>
> BTW, with DANTE's DVD about to arrive with me, too, I've got a  
> different
> question before updating from TL2007 to TL2008: When I still worked on
> Windows, I did not like the MiKTeX package manager because when  
> running
> into trouble after updating a package, there was no way to return to  
> the
> previous version of the package as the package manager did not make a
> backup before updating... there are no previous versions of packages
> available on CTAN, either... I had to return to elder package versions
> from time to time due to compatibility issues with my private
> packages... Now, how does tlmgr behave in this respect? The same as  
> the
> MiKTeX package manager? Or can I easily return to a different  
> version of
> a package using tlmgr?
>

I'm afraid there is no back tracking. Even CTAN usually has the latest  
revision and not the previous versions of a package and TeX Live uses  
CTAN for its updates.

> Perhaps I should add that I prefer to install a complete TeX
> distribution once a year. Then, I update only those packages in my  
> local
> texmf tree by hand that I actually use in my LaTeX documents. I just
> don't like the idea of an automatic package manager very much...  
> <shrug>
>
> TIA,
> Jürgen.
>

There is nothing that forces you to update!

Also, you can have both MacTeX (TeX Live) 2007 and 2008 on disk  
simultaneously and switch between active distributions via the TeX  
Distribution System Preference Pane.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)