[tex-live] tl09 release status: coming up

George N. White III gnwiii at gmail.com
Fri Oct 9 13:40:32 CEST 2009


On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 5:19 AM, Joseph Wright
<joseph.wright at morningstar2.co.uk> wrote:
> Philip TAYLOR wrote:
>> It seems to me that moving to release status is still somewhat
>> premature for Windows users, who numerically exceed Linux users
>> by a substantial ratio.
>
> But:
>
> 1) When downloading the installer and letting it do the installation,
> all is fine. That is the most common method for Windows users, I suspect.

Maybe for sites with good access to a CTAN mirror, but not so if the user's
network access is poor.  The issue here seems to be 2-fold:

1) using Windows to mirror the CTAN site, which is really for a different
forum, but it would be good to have links for TL users who need to do
this.

2) installing under XP from a mirror on a local disk (as opposed to using
a local http server).  For people running linux, unix, or macosx it is
common to have (internal) http servers.

MiKTeX 2.8 can use a mirror on a disk, but does not support installs
from ad-hoc URL's.  TL seems to reverse this.   I think this reflects
the differences in the two development platforms more than any
fundamental limitation, and there are likely ways to work around the
issues.

> 2) Although there are lots of Windows users, most of them are likely to
> use MiKTeX if they want a TeX system.

In my experience, those who work exclusively in windows are generally
happy with MiKTeX (and more so if the site provides a local mirror of the
MiKTeX packages, less so if they use ConTeXt).  There are many people
who work in environments with multiple OS's.  TL on Windows is useful to
those who collaborate with people who use TL on other platforms, especially
if the work involves things other than standard journal articles using LaTeX.



-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia


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