[tex-live] MetaPost mfplain in Debian distro

[Steve White]

Hi,

The Debian distros for some time have been challenged regarding the
mfplain input file.
I don't know if this is a packaging problem or a problem with MetaPost.

First, the on-line documentation for mpost is just a mess.  See Matijs
van Zuijlen's bug report
    http://lists.debian.org/debian-tex-maint/2007/12/msg00174.html

But it's worse than that.  Almost nothing works as documented, but
something seems to be wrong with mfplain in particular.

As Matijs points out, there are no ".mem" files whatever in the
distro, so all the -mem and "&" methods for loading them fail.
(Maybe this is a packaging problem?)

However, the .mp files for the base packages are copied to
/usr/share/texmf-texlive/metapost/base/, and
I found that if I enter the name of one as the first mpost input line,
it loaded it....almost:

$ mpost
This is MetaPost, Version 0.993 (Web2C 7.5.6)
**boxes
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/metapost/base/boxes.mp)
*

OK, that looks good.  I can also do this with most of the other
packges in that directory.  However:

$ mpost
This is MetaPost, Version 0.993 (Web2C 7.5.6)
**mfplain
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/metapost/base/mfplain.mp
Preloading the plain base, version 0.99: preliminaries,
 basic constants and mathematical macros,
 macros for converting units,
! Inconsistent equation (off by 2.77794).
<to be read again>
                   ;
l.230 mm*bpppix_=2.83464;
                               pt*bpppix_=0.996

Is this a packaging problem, or a problem with mfplain?

What can I do to get the functionality of mfplain?

Thanks!