[OS X TeX] TeX Live 2015 and MacTeX-2015

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Jun 12, 2015, at 3:36 AM, Berend Hasselman <bhh at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> Why not change the “/usr/texbin" to “/usr/local/texbin” ?
> Or will that also no longer  be permitted?
> 
> Berend Hasselman
> 
>> Currently, GUI apps are configured to look for binaries in /usr/texbin.
>> These work fine with the new MacTeX-2015 and BasicTeX-2015.
>> Over the summer, you might like to reconfigure these GUI apps
>> to use /Library/TeX/texbin. You’ll discover that the apps still work,
>> even if you switch to an earlier distribution like TeX Live 2012.
>> 
>> When you upgrade to El Capitan in the fall, reconfiguration
>> will become mandatory. 
>> 
>> The TeX Dist pref pane will work with either link. Indeed
>> at the moment we know of no other TeX problems with El
>> Capitan.

Howdy,

It is possible to write to /usr/local and /usr/local/texbin was one of the choices discussed. The /Library/TeX/texbin location was chosen since that is completely under the control of MacTeX (which actually installs that directory and contents which are used by the TeX Distribution Preference Pane and the most recent version of TeX Live Utility to change active distribution). PS: it's a good thing that /usr/local under El Capitan is still writable by MacTeX since that's where the TeX Live Distributions are installed.

One other thing to note: MacTeX-2015 not only installs the /Library/TeX/texbin link to the binaries (as well as /usr/texbin on pre-El Capitan OS versions) it also changes the PATH to use /Library/TeX/texbin for Command Line use. Everything just works! How Mac-like! :-)

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)