[tex-live] missing latex.fmt

[John Culleton]

On Monday 10 December 2007 05:14:39 pm Zdenek Wagner wrote:
> 2007/12/10, Johannes Goller <jogojapan at googlemail.com>:
> > Dear TexLive team,
> >
> > after following the instructions on
> > http://www.tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html in order to
> > install TexLive on i383-linux in /usr/local/texlive of a machine runniner
> > Redhat Enterprise Linux release 3 (Taroon Update 7), I ran into the
> > following issue when true to "latex" or "pdflatex" a simple .tex test
> > file:
> >
> >
> > latex Diss.tex
> > This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6)
> >  %&-line parsing enabled.
> > kpathsea: Running mktexfmt latex.fmt
> > I can't find the format file `latex.fmt'!
> >
> >
> >  I tried various combinations of "texconfig" and "texconfig-sys" and
> > "fmtutil-sys", using such options as "--enable-fmt latex", "--refresh",
> > "--missing", "--all", but I am still having the problem.
> >
> > I installed TexLive as user "root", but I tried the above both as "root"
> > and as an ordinary user.
> >
> > The options I chose during the installation were as follows:
> >   - I removed several language-specific packages
> >   - I removed several of the documentation packages
> >   - I enabled the "install essential binaries" option [because, from its
> > name, it seems to be essential]
> >
> > But I also tried a flat installation with no options changed (after
> > removing the previous installation). None of this had any impact on the
> > situation.
> >
> > Would you kindly be able to help me?
>
> 1. Did you try:
> fmtutil --byfmt latex
> What does it report?
>
> 2. Does "which latex" find the executable in the correct directory?
> Remember that it must be at the BEGINNING of ypur PATH because Linux
> always installs at least a part of teTeX even if you select that you
> do not want to install it.
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Johannes Goller.

Different distros follow different rules when TeX is deselected.
On my Slackware 12 system it only installs the directory structure necessary 
to get to the single file gnuplot.cfg:
/usr/share/texmf-local/tex/latex/gnuplot 

No other files are included.  

-- 
John Culleton
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