[tex-live] Not so good experience with TL net install on windows.

[Reinhard Kotucha]

George N. White III writes:

 >> PERL5LIB = C:\TeXLive2007\perltl\lib;C:\TeXLive2007\perltl\site\lib
 > 
 > This may also be set by some other apps built with perl, not only
 > TL2007.

No, PERL5LIB should be set when you install Perl.  Nothing except Perl
itself needs this env var.

First of all, this variable should be used by Perl provided by TL2007
only.  Other programs can simply call Perl without depending on this
variable.  However, If you have written your own Perl scripts which
are currently using TL-2007's Perl, it's probably better to uninstall
it and install ActivePerl instead.  The TL-2007 Perl stuff is no
longer maintained.

The Perl scripts which are part of TL-2008 are launched by a wrapper
script which overwrites PERL5LIB.  The relevant piece of code is:

  TEXDIR=kpse.var_value('SELFAUTOPARENT')
  os.setenv('PERL5LIB', TEXDIR..'/tlpkg/tlperl/lib')
 
Hence, you can keep PERL5LIB or remove it, but I propose to uninstall
TL-2007 completely and install ActivePerl if needed.  It's not needed
by TL-2008, though.
 
 > > TEXMFCNF = C:\TeXLive2007\texmf-var\web2c
 > > TEXMFTEMP = C:\TeXLive2007\temp
 > > TLroot = C:\TeXLive2007
 > >
 > > Regarding the PATH, the only directory related to TL2007 that remains is :
 > > C:\TeXLive2007_xxx\dviout;
 > >
 > > (the "_xxx" string is what I added to have it point to a non-existent
 > > directory).
 > 
 > TEXINPUTS caused problems for some testers with MiKTeX
 > installed.
 
TL doesn't set TEXINPUTS, and it hopefully didn't in the past.  In my
opinion this variable shouldn't be set at all. Never!  There are
better means to twaek your system than to set environment variables.

 > (MiKTeX interprets TEXINPUTS differently from kpathsea --
 > TEXINPUTS=./macros will look in the macros subdir of the
 > current working directory.    In my experience, this is quite
 > common among MiKTeX users.)

Strange.  Does the MikTeX documentation encourage people to set
TEXINPUTS?  If it's not possible to simply add './' to the search path
in the main config file I fear that there is no convenient way to use
TeX Live *AND* MikTeX at the same time.

Hovever, experienced users could write batch files, like

-------------------------------------
@echo off
TEXINPUTS=
PATH=\path\to\texlive\bin;%PATH%
cmd.exe 
-------------------------------------

or

-------------------------------------
@echo off
PATH=\path\to\miktex\bin;%PATH%
cmd.exe 
-------------------------------------

And then they can use both, TeX Live and MikTeX.  But I expect that
most people decide in favor of one system and it makes most sense then
to remove the other one completely.

BTW, I can't repeat it often enough: Only set TeX related environment
varibles if you have no other choice and if you are absolutely sure
that you know what you are doing.  You always have another choice
though I must admit that I don't know anything about MikTeX.  These
environment variables are only good for headaches, maybe not
immediately but certainly in one or two years.  There is no need to
use them, TeX Live is more happy without them and I assume that they
can be avoided in MikTeX too.

PLEASE AVOID ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES!  Read the manual describing your
TeX distribution instead.  There are more appropriate solutions.  None
of them depends on environment variables.  And as I said before,
environment variables are only good for headaches.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-3373112
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