[tex-k] mktextfm error: failed to make TFM file

[Karl Berry]

Hi Dmitry,

    https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/702185/
    [...]
    I've just installed *texlive-full* AUR package
    ...
    This is METAFONT, Version 2.71828182 (TeX Live 2023) [...]
    (Fatal base file error; I'm stymied)

That error message indicates your mf installation is broken. You need to
report the problem to your distro. This is not related to upstream TL --
every distro handles generation of fmt/base files in a different
way. (They should have changed the banner for their binaries.)

You can try running Metafont from the command line, outside of mktextfm,
to exercise the base file:
  mf '\end'

The result should be:
  This is METAFONT, Version 2.71828182 (TeX Live 2023) (preloaded base=mf)
  Transcript written on mfput.log.

Once that works, hopefully mf will also work and be able to generate the
larm fonts needed.

Hope this helps,
Karl