[tex-live] Perl for Windows

[Hans Hagen]

gnwiii at gmail.com wrote:
> On 6/21/06, Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>> ==== intermezzo
>> [...]
>> ====== tex
>>
>> so, how about tex (and the future) then
>>
>> i got the feeling that which each year of tex live the 'let's make 
>> something
>> great for all platforms and treat them equal' were coming more close to
>> 'tex live is for linxu geeks only' (the split in win/lin code base is 
>> the most
>> prominent sign of this)
>
> In this sort of project, you get what people are willing to provide.
> I'm not surprised that fewer people are willing to write code for
> Win32 than for linux.
eh, i don't understand what you mean, fabrice provides whatever is 
needed (actually, he's rewritten some of the shell stuff in portable c, 
so ...)
>
> It would be good to maintain a list the TeX binary packages with which
> the TL tree is expected to work.  This would give certain linux
> vendors an incentive to update their tetex packages and provide a URL
> other than "how to report a problem" in replies to certain bug
> reports.
since tex live is TDS compliance any TDS compliant binary package should 
work; actually, i had the impression that linux packagers ship patched 
versions of texmf.cnf files (in etc instead of web2c) so the most that 
can be done is to have sort of 'reference texmf.cnf' file, which is what 
tex live provides
>
> What we loose:
>
> 1) the ability to promote the spread of useful new binaries (e.g.,
> sam2p, xetex).
i dunno what sam2p is -)

xetex emerged on the mac, and once ported to a more generic backend 
(xpdfmx) is now avaliable in linux and windows so it demonstrates that 
new things (when found useful) are picked up (actually, dvipdfmx for a 
long time was only standard available in the windows part of tex 
distributions, maybe because most cjk users use windows, i dunno)
> 2) control of versions of texmf/scripts that were copied over to
>    the binary distro in years past (rather than use the kpsewhich
>    method to find scripts in the texmf tree at runtime)
i fear that this is too much related to 'distributer policies' which 
themselve relate to the different operating systems; i admit that it's a 
tough part of the game
> 3) uncertain support for legacy unix systems (now that tetex is not
> being maintained)
> 4) opportunities to complain about certain OS's
>
> There could be some benefits to people trying to put together new
> linuix distros -- rather than deciding what to include on the basis of
> user requests, the distro can
> provide a really minimal texmf tree (e.g., using system fonts) and
> suggest to people who want more that they install the TL tree.
>
but don't most linux distributions base their tex stuff on debian then? 
(i dunno how standardized tex is among linux distributions, mayb eonly 
differences in what gets installed, not so much the locations)

Hans

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