[OS X TeX] pdflatex and TL2008

[Claus Gerhardt]

pdflatex is only a symbolic link to the binary pdftex, i.e., if the  
symbolic link is missing you can simply recreate it.

In order to upgrade or reinstall pdftex I would recommend to download  
the pdftex source file
pdftex-1.40.9.tar.bz2 from CTAN or from Hàn Thê´ Thành's site and in  
addition the manual pdftex-a.pdf, then you can simply run the provided  
shell script build.sh to compile a pdftex binary for your specific  
machine type; afterwards you have to install three binaries in  
universal-darwin - the file pdftex.pool is obsolete and no longer  
needed. Running fmtutil-sys --all will finish the installation.

It is really a no-brainer and I now use a i386 pdftex binary.

Claus


On Sep 21, 2008, at 4:24, Justin C. Walker wrote:

> Thanks, Simon,
>
> On Sep 20, 2008, at 17:21 , Simon Spiegel wrote:
>> On 20.09.2008, at 17:17, Justin C. Walker wrote:
>>>
>>> I installed TexLive 2008 a couple of weeks ago, and it worked  
>>> without a problem, until I updated with 'tlmgr'.  Now, 'pdflatex'  
>>> is missing, and if I specifically try to get that program, I get  
>>> "not found" (for 'install') or "strange - it's not there" (for  
>>> 'update').
>>
>> I had the same problems, and after some mails with Karl Berry, the  
>> sad conclusion is this: tlmgr can ATM delete a package/program if  
>> something goes wrong during the update. The problem is that tlmgr  
>> currently deletes the item it updates before it makes sure that the  
>> update has actually been successful. So if something goes wrong  
>> during the download process of the update –  for example because of  
>> loss of network connection – you'll end up losing the particular  
>> thing you wanted to update. As I said, this has been confirmed by  
>> Karl and an update is in the making, but the sad conclusion is that  
>> tlmgr is not really safe at the moment (I had various packages and  
>> programs disappearing this week when I tried and re-tried to update  
>> my installation.).
>
> A followup question: Does this explain why trying to update or  
> install 'pdflatex' by name, from several different mirrors, fails?
>
> Justin
>
> --
> Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-at-Large
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