[tex-live] TL 0206 notes

[Staszek Wawrykiewicz]

Short notes on TL6 20010206:
1. jadetex and xmltex formats warnings:
  WARNING: Elsevier font setup not found

  WARNING: mmasym package not loaded. some symbols will fail

2. /Master directory on CD? Why?

3. It is good time to change strings TeX Live 5 to TeX Live 6 (also
   in texsetup.exe)

4. Win32
   we have now 2 versions: TeXSetup and TeXSetup1.0.7, however
   autorun.inf points to TeXSetup --net-download
   At the start we have:
       I was given --net-download option so I will try 
       to establish the Internet connection
   The user has only *one* choice: `OK' (somehow frustrating, when 
   installing from the TL CD). Fabrice, would you please consider 
   adding another button(s):  `Install only from CD/HD'. 
   It will be OK for both TL CD and fptex downloaded from CTAN. Or, better, 
   do not start with --net-download by default, and let this option 
   in the dialog box.

5. As I've already asked, what to do when installing first the basic stuff
   and then adding, e.g., pdftex, etex or omega? As we have in .tpm files,
   only macros and supplementary files are installed, without binaries
   and pools... On Windows, the user perhaps has to select also win32
   package, so we can add such hint to the docs. On Unix systems it is 
   more complicated. Well, this should be left for future thoughts...

6. I received some questions concerning Linux and TL. Briefly:
   - in many cases BLU has already installed TeX from Linux distribution
     (BLU didn't hear before about TeX, so the system is not configured)
   - one beautiful day BLU wants to install TL to start his adventure
     with TeX. BLU often doesn't even know how to change PATH (he just
     switched from Windows to Linux ;-), so running `latex file'
     crashed with some mess of messages. Naive? Not so much, when
     we consider many young people, injured by Windows. My mailbox
     is quite full...

Some conclusions for now: 
- install-cd.sh can provide simple check and message like: 
    You have already TeX installed in /usr/bin/ (binaries) and 
    /usr/share/texmf/ (TeX concerned macros, fonts, etc.)
    ... [some more info?]
- <O> options -> 
     <L>  create symlinks in standard directories 
   should point (by default) to the most common /usr/bin 
   (rather then to /usr/local/bin which is hardly usable for the admin 
   during setup)
- changing PATH variable after installation should be stressed in 
  the documentation and during install script run.

7. The most important information what it is really installed should be
   reconsidered. At the moment I think about the idea of providing 
   simple .html file which lists packages by levels, categories, etc.
   (with short, available descriptions; many of them are unfortuntly
   missing...)

8. As we talk about .tpm descriptions, many of them are inapropriate
   for TL (fpTeX) when just borrowed from Catalogue: see texlive.tpm, 
   tetex.tpm, etc.

Staszek Wawrykiewicz
email: staw@gust.org.pl