[OS X TeX] Cannot change Tex Distrib. after upgrade to Maverics

[Herbert Schulz]

On May 23, 2014, at 2:13 AM, Martin Wilhelm Leidig <listwatch at moss.in-berlin.de> wrote:

> Good mprning, Herb!
> 
> Am 2014-05-23 um 00:53 schrieb Herbert Schulz:
>> 
>> On May 22, 2014, at 5:47 PM, Martin Wilhelm Leidig <listwatch at moss.in-berlin.de> wrote:
>>> on 2014-04-22, 19:41 you wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Sigh... the TeX Distribution Preference Pane is broken under Mavericks. We expect to have a fixed version for MacTeX-2014 which is presently being built and tested. Can't give a release date.
>>>> 
>>>> If you want to go back to TL2012 please get in touch with me off-list. I have a bit of a technical method for fixing that up.
>>> 
>>> Could you please tell me that method, too?  I have a new MacBook running 10.9.3 and need to be able to run older TL versions when testing my own (La)TeX stuff.  Also, a client asked me for a solution.  Thanks in advance!
> 
> --> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxes9ktfidr2ps5/Olinol.gif> Sorry.
> 
>> What versions of the distribution do you need to switch between?
> 
> All of them.  ;-)
> 
> Well, 2010--2013 and, if possible, 2014-pretest would be great.  If I understand correctly, one could achieve that by
> • re-setting a few symlinks (/usr/texbin, /Library/TeX/Root, /Library/TeX/Documentation, anything else?),
> • re-setting a few shell variables (MANPATH, PATH), and
> • (probably) initialising the corresponding TeXMF subtree(s), 
> right?
> 
> 
> Regards from Ladenburg,
> 
> -Moss-
> -- 

Howdy,

In Terminal execute

sudo texdist --setcurrent=TeXLive-2013

and give your admin password when prompted to activate TeX Live 2013. To activate TeX Live 2014 (pretest or distribution once it comes out) substitute TeXLive-2014 for TeXLive-2013 in the command above. Take a look at /Library/TeX/Distributions to see the possible values of that parameter for your setup; e.g., if TeXLive-2014.texdist exists in that folder you can use TeXLive-2014 as the parameter.

PS: There will be a new version of the TeX Distribution Preference Pane distributed with MacTeX-2014 (once it comes out) that fixes the problem with Mavericks.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)