[OS X TeX] Updating MacTex and Mac OS X

[Herbert Schulz]

On Sep 4, 2009, at 3:03 AM, Christoph Hoh wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I am currently running Mac OS X 10.4.11 with MacTex-2007 on a  
> MacBook. Everything is fine regarding TeX.
>
> Now, I 'd like to upgrade from Tiger to Snow Leopard without giving  
> up a nice working TeX installation.
>
> According to you, what is the best option?
>
> 1. Waiting for the MacTex-2009 distribution prior to upgrade to Snow  
> Leopard and then updating both (OS and TeX distribution)?
> or
> 2. Using MacTeX-2007 on Snow Leopard (if feasible)?
> or
> 3. Upgrading to Snow Leopard and then installing MacTex-2008 (or  
> vice versa) and then fixing the small bugs as described at tug.org/mactex?
>
> Thanks a lot in advance for any advice!
>
> Regards, Christoph
> ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------

Howdy,

I'd go with (1) if you can put off the upgrade of your MacTeX  
distribution. Of course, you can also get the pre-test MacTeX-2009 and  
install that. It's pretty stable and you can set up TeX Live Utility  
to keep it updated since the binaries are pretty well frozen. Go to <http://www.tug.org/texlive/mirmon/ 
 >, choose a server in your vicinity and click on it and note the URL  
of that repository for later insertion in TeX Live Utility. You'll be  
able to download the latest MacTeX-2009 mpkg from the server (about  
1.3GB!).

Install Snow Leopard first and then MacTeX-2009 which will install TeX  
Live-2009, Ghostscript 8.70, some updated GUI applications (TeXShop,  
TeXworks [now part of TeX Live], the Excalibur Spell Checker, BibDesk  
[an older version--this has been fixed for later releases of MacTeX],  
TeX Live Utility [it will suggest an update to 0.8 when you run it  
which only works with TeX Live 2009] all in /Applications/TeX/ and i- 
Installer in /Applications/Utilities/), ImageMagic's convert (may be  
an Custom install---I don't remember). Please join the tex-live  
mailing list at <http://www.tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tex-live> to  
report any anomalies.

When you run TeX Live Utility go to the Preferences and put the URL  
you copied above into the  Repository space. This repository is only  
for the pre-test and will have to be chnaged once TeX Live-2009 is  
released.

Your second choice is (3) but some caveates. Don't update TLU past  
0.74 (available at <http://code.google.com/p/mactlmgr/downloads/list>)  
since 0.80 and later will only work with TeX Live-2009 (and later?).  
You'll still have to fix the man link so that Snow Leopard will find it.

In either case your MacTeX-2007 distribution will be still be usable  
after the install and you can switch between the distributions via the  
TeX Distribution Preference Pane (again with the caveate at <tug.org/mactex 
 > about the preference pane installed by MacTeX-2007/8 being 32bit.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)