[tex-live] TeXlive for Debian - Comments from DD and Mentor(s)

[Frank Küster]

Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at> wrote:

> (BTW, sidenote: Frank, did you mean /usr/share/doc/texmf and not
> /usr/share/texmf/doc? In texcommon there is TEXDOCS = .;$TEXMF/doc//)

In teTeX in Debian the physical path is /usr/share/doc/texmf, and there
is a symlink

/usr/share/texmf/doc -> ../doc/texmf

so that the TEXDOCS setting above will work.  I don't know the reasons,
but it doesn't seem to be a problem anywhere, and therefore I never
considered changing this.  Because of the behavior of dpkg, switching a
symlink to a dir is a complicated, error-prone process even if the
change is only at one place (e.g. in woody we had 

/usr/share/texmf/web2c/ -> /var/lib/texmf/web2c

and now we have both as directories).  I think it will be even more
difficult to actually switch target and location of a symlink.  

Therefore, unless somebody comes up with a really convincing argument,
I'd just keep it as it is, and the texlive packages should do the same
(otherwise dpkg will have inconsistent information).

> Furthermore, I have installed all the info files. Now:
>
> . Since the doc files are *not* present anymore in
>   /usr/share/doc/package/... dh_compress leave them uncompressed.
>   Is this OK?

Should have read this earlier.  This *is* a good reason for putting the
files into /usr/share/doc/texmf, not /usr/share/texmf/doc.

> . Can I leave the info files also in /usr/share/texmf/doc/.... where
>   they are present in TeX live, or should they not installed into TEXMF;
>   and only into /usr/share/info?

I think they should be removed from the TEXMF tree - everybody who knows
that they can point info on a file with a full pathname will also be
able to find them where they belong; everybody else will just say "info"
and start browsing, or "info program".

Regards, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer