[tex-live] A few glitches in tlnet/tldev

[Reinhard Kotucha]

George N. White III writes:
 > I did a test install on a OS X Leopard 10.5.3.
 > 
 > OS X doesn't appear to provide wget -- I used macports.  It is
 > possible some other tools used by the scripts also came from macports.

Hi George,
I'm not familiar with the OS X at all.  As far as I understand,
macports and fink are extensions to OS X which make free software
available.  If this is true, we can't rely on them.

It's quite late for big changes in TeX Live, but if there is a native
command-line tool provided by OS X which does the same as wget and you
are willing to do some tests, maybe the installer and getnonfreefonts
could use it.  If not, (or if it can't be done easily) I prefer the
following solution:

If someone provides a wget binary for OS X, we can do this:

  * The wget binary will be put into the directory on the server which
    contains the network installer.

  * The files README.OSX.html and index.html will be provided.

  * The getnonfreefonts man page will contain a link to README.OSX.html,
    you can't use getnonfreefonts without internet access anyway.

 > Each time I have to go thru the configuration menus (or figure out
 > how to put the selections on the command line).  Either I forgot to
 > set the papersize on the last iteration or the setting was not
 > honored, as I'm getting A4 pdfs when I asked for letterpaper.

If you don't remember whether you enabled letter paper in the
installer menu, just try 

  grep letter /usr/local/texlive/2008/tlpkg/texlive.profile

BTW, you told us some time ago that you have to install TeX Live on
many machines.  We decided to make your life easier.  After you
installed TeX Live on one machine you can copy texlive.profile to your
USB stick and can install TL in batch mode on other machines:

   install-tl -profile /media/usb/texlive.profile

 > Running "texconfig paper letter" and rebuilding formats fixed this for
 > pdftex, but not xetex:

The program which changes paper sizes is derived from Thomas'
texconfig.  It changes entries in config files.  I don't see any
config file for xetex in the texmf tree.  If anybody tells me what is
needed for xetex, I'll add support.

Regards, and many thanks for the feedback,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-3373112
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