[tex-live] Minimal TeX system?

[gnwiii at gmail.com]

On 9/22/06, Casey R. <zzthex at berkeley.edu> wrote:

> I would like to install a minimal TeX system on my computer, an intel
> mac running OS X. What I had in mind was something to process plain
> .tex files, and something to turn the resultant DVIs into PDFs. Also,
> I suppose I might like to have to have some nice fonts like Computer
> Modern, etc.

Pdftex lets you go directly to pdf -- do you really need .dvi files?

> Can anyone point me in the right direction? It seems very hard to get
> a working TeX without all the LaTeX stuff and a bunch of utilities.

You might consider adapting the minimal ConTeXt to you needs:

http://www.pragma-ade.com/context/install/macosxtex.zip

I'm not sure if this has universal binaries -- if not they must be
coming "real soon now".   There will be a texmf tree and some ruby and
perl scripts you don't need, but
the system is all contained in a single directory so it should be a
good starting point for your own "minimal" distribution.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia