[tex-live] Peer-to-peer install ?

[Norbert Preining]

On Do, 07 Aug 2008, Philip TAYLOR wrote:
> >But there are other options: Just *copy* everything from the install
> >root to the other computers. Then you only have to add the bin/win32 dir
> >to the PATH and you are done.
> 
> That is great, Norbert, and certainly faster than any
> peer-to-peer install (I can therefore burn the entire
> install root to a DVD and move things around that way).
> But once I've done so, and added the "bin/win32" dir
> to the path[1], can I then use the package manager
> from the systems onto which I've cloned my installation ?

Yes. But note that I have never tried it, but I am 99% sure that it will
work.

There is one thing you might want to do if you had xetex installed:
After adding bin/win32 to the path you can run
	fc-cache -v -c

> >Other options would be mirroring the CTAN tlnet directory.
> 
> And presumably setting up an FTP server ?  Would such

No need, you can install from a file
	install-tl.bat -location /pat/to/the/main/dir/containing/tlpkg

> [1]  Incidentally, is there any reason why
> the installation binaries such as PERL, etc., are not
> also made accessible through the path ?  The install

Yes, we don't want to interfere with installed perls, and we don't ship
a full featured perl. But we cannot ship ActiveState Perl. So we decided
to ship a minimal perl (self compiled) and hide it.

> PERL, and it would save me (and perhaps others) from
> having to download from ActiveSystems ...

But you would get a decent system, not a stripped down the minimals
system.

Best wishes

Norbert

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Dr. Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at>        Vienna University of Technology
Debian Developer <preining at debian.org>                         Debian TeX Group
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