[tex-live] ifxetex package missing from collection-xetex

Siep Kroonenberg siepo at cybercomm.nl
Mon Feb 5 18:10:36 CET 2007


On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 04:56:54PM +0100, Andreas Hirsch wrote:
> quoting Siep Kroonenberg, [05.02.2007 16:44]:
> > On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 10:44:38AM +0100, Dirk Ullrich wrote:
> >> 2007/2/4, Siep Kroonenberg <siepo at cybercomm.nl>:
> >> [...]
> >>> Of course, for a shared network install you want a preconfigured
> >>> user installation, and then GUI tools aren't much help.  For MikTeX
> >>> 2.5 things were a bit harder than for MikTeX 2.4, and I have heard
> >>> of other people who gave up on MikTeX 2.5 for a network install.
> >>>
> >> We did use at work  MiKTeX up to version 2.4 for a long time. Some
> >> days ago I gave MiKTeX 2.5 a try and was dissatisfied: Much less
> >> customize options during install. Especially I had problems to move so
> >> MiKTeX folders to other than the default locations (for a shared
> >> installation). I have found some rare hints at the Internet, but they
> >> did not work. My last resort was analyzing the source code (I love
> >> open source software!), and then to made some direct registry changes.
> >> Now I would prefer TeXLive much to MiKTeX--even under Win32.
> >>
> >> Dirk
> > 
> > This stuff was documented in http://docs.miktex.org/2.5/preview.pdf.
> > In the MikTeX manual you can find some more information by searching
> > for setupwiz. You can't blame anyone for not finding this, though.
> 
> right, but:
> 
> We tried hard and read a lot of information, we consulted the
> miktex-users-list - problems remaind unsolved.
> 
> We file-rights granted by samba on the network-shares are not sufficient
> for miktex/windows. MiKTeX 2.5 needs a FileNameDataBase for every user
> an create fonts for every user - primary on the local machine (even
> Christian Schenk says that its no good idea to change this.

I consider these per-user FNDB's, even for shared trees, indeed a very
unfortunate feature of MikTeX. I like TeX Live's ls-R at the root of
every tree much better.

As to fonts: most users go to pdf anyway so this is not a big issue.

> On the other hand its no good idea to have 1000 FNDB's on the network
> and create all fonts 1000 times ...
> 
> ... an copy this on every login to the local maschine

You already have 1000 times My Documents and 1000 times Application
Data. A big mess becomes only a little bit bigger.

> 
> Until 2.4 this was now problem and i could not imagine they this has to
> be changed
> 
> > As long as users seem to be happy and as long as I don't run
> > into insurmountable problems, I'll think twice before making radical
> > changes.
> 
> as pointed out, we did more than that - spening about two weeks of my
> summer holiday in our school-network - trying to become 2.5 runnung
> 
> So there are good reasons for making radical changes

I am not criticizing. I am merely claiming that a network MikTeX
install is still possible and seems to work ok. I am not even
claiming that it was the best thing to do.

-- 
Siep Kroonenberg


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