[OS X TeX] Re: Install MacTex outside /usr/local?

[Gorram Freak]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 3:00 PM,  Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa at Web.DE> wrote:

>> /usr/local is a symbolic link
>> to a read-only network share.
>>
>> So, does anyone know a way to install (Mac)TeX in an alternate
>> directory?
>
> Remove (rename) the link and install. Afterwards you can rename /usr/
> local to /usr/really local (or such) and also change some files in /
> etc to reflect this change and still have access to the programmes.
> and, of course, don't forget the original /usr/local!
>
> The TeX related programmes have the ability built-it to find all
> their particles *relative* to place where the programme was invoked.
> If the whole branch stays intact, you can move it anywhere.
>
> A problem might be the TeX preferences pane. It might not be written
> to work in such flexible ways.

This is the approach I took since I had already downloaded the MacTeX pkg.

For anyone else who tries this, I wanted to clarify the additional
change I had to make, which was to update a chain of symbolic links
specifying the TeX path. The path is specified in /etc/paths.d/TeX (on
OS 10.5 at least), which contains the path /usr/texbin ->
../Library/TeX/Distributions/.DefaultTeX/Contents/Programs/i386 ->
/usr/local/texlive/2008/bin/universal-darwin.

Thanks Pete!

--Arthur