[OS X TeX] Bug in Preference Pane

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jul 27, 2011, at 5:02 AM, Andrea Raiconi wrote:

> 
> Il giorno Jul 26, 2011, alle ore 10:23 PM, Richard Koch ha scritto:
> 
>> Jerome and TeX Users,
>> 
>> Unfortunately, there is a significant bug in the Preference Pane, build 151, which is
>> installed by MacTeX-2011 and BasicTeX. This version of MacTeX will be on the DVD,
>> so we will be living with this bug for some time.
>> 
>> Because of the bug, users who install TeX Live 2011 will not be able to switch back 
>> to an earlier distribution like TeXLive-2010 or TeXLive-2010-64.
>> The Preference Pane will see the distribution and appear to select it,
>> but the user's front end will complain that there are no TeX binaries
>> in that location.
>> 
>> (If you installed a beta version of TeX Live 2011, you may not see the problem.)
>> 
>> MacTeX does not touch the TeX Distribution Data Structures from earlier distributions,
>> but the Preference Pane does, when it first selects an old distribution. The Pane
>> writes a symbolic link named "texbin" in the data structure's Programs folder.
>> Unfortunately, build 151 of the Pane writes an incorrect value for this link.
>> 
>> Once you know more details, your inner geek will be able to fix the problem.
>> 
>> Using Terminal, 
>> 
>> 	cd /Library/TeX/Distributions/.FactoryDefaults
>> 	ls
>> 
>> You will see a lot of folders, one for each TeX distribution. There will be folders 
>> for some distributions you do not have, but that is fine.
>> 
>> One folder you will certainly have is TeXLive-2011. Type
>> 
>> 	cd TeXLive-2011/Contents/Programs
>> 	ls
>> 
>> to see the files in the Programs folder for this distribution. You will see five
>> entries. Four will be links named i386, ppc, powerpc, and x86_64
>> pointing to the locations of binary directories for various kinds of processor. These
>> are fine. Then you will see texbin, and it will be a link to one of these other links.
>> On my Lion machine, texbin points to x86_64. I believe that everyone will have
>> a reasonable value for texbin.
>> 
>> Now examine one of the other distributions, say TeXLive-2010. In Terminal type
>> 
>> 	cd /Library/TeX/Distributions/.FactoryDefaults
>> 	cd TeXLive-2010/Contents/Programs
>> 	ls -l
>> 
>> If you have already selected TeXLive-2010 in the new Preference Pane, you will
>> see four links. Three, named i386, ppc, and powerpc, will be fine, pointing to
>> various binaries in the distribution. But texbin will point to universal-darwin,
>> which is not one of the choices. To fix it, type
>> 
>> 	sudo rm texbin
>> 	sudo ln -s i386 texbin
>> 
>> If you have a PowerPC machine, use powerpc rather than i386 in this last command.
>> 
>> Repeat this process for TeXLive-2010-64
>> 
>> 	cd /Library/TeX/Distributions/.FactoryDefaults
>> 	cd TeXLive-2010064/Contents/Programs
>> 	ls -l
>> 
>> You will see links named i386, powerpc, and ppc, which are fine. But texbin 
>> will be a link to x86_64, which doesn't exist. It should instead be a link to i386. So
>> 
>> 	sudo rm texbin
>> 	sudo ln -s i386 texbin
>> 
>> If you have other older distributions, you will have to fix them in the same way. Once
>> fixed, build 151 of the Pref Pane won't break them.
>> 
>> Dick Koch----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------
>> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
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>> 
> 
> 
> Richard,
> I did not make any change in the pref pane and therefore I have only three links in both TeXLive-2010-64 and TeXLive-2010. Should I create texbin in each of them as you suggested anyway? 
> 

Howdy,

I believe you need to make the suggested changes if you want to switch to the TL2010 at some point.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)