[tex-live] tl09 release status: coming up

[Victor Ivrii]

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Reinhard Kotucha
<reinhard.kotucha at web.de> wrote:
> On 12 October 2009 C.M. Connelly wrote:
>
>  > "SK" == Siep Kroonenberg <siepo at cybercomm.nl>
>  > "JW" == Joseph Wright
>  >
>  >     JW> (On the other hand, *why* the TL team wanting installation
>  >     JW> are not to run as Administrator? The usual rule is install
>  >     JW> as Admin, use as a non-privileged user. I don't quite get
>  >     JW> this.)
>  >
>  >     SK> E.g. if you sysadmin doesn't give you enough rights on
>  >     SK> your computer.
>  >
>  > I can assure you that if one of my users installed TeX Live in
>  > their own account, I would be very, very unhappy with them, and
>  > I'm fairly sure I speak for most sysadmins.  Definitely make it
>  > easy to use from a DVD or USB drive, but please *don't* make it
>  > easy to install in individuals' accounts.
>
> I think it should be possible to install TeX Live easily everywhere.
>
> Do you mean that it should be difficult to install TL as a
> non-privileged user?  This would be bad.  I'm maintaining a TL system
> on a Linux server where I'm not root.  People can mount it on their
> Windows machines or use it on the server.

I second it: as non-priviledged user I'm maintaining TL2008 (to be
retired in a couple of months) and TL2009 also on Unix with absolutely
no problem.
However to do this I have a completely separate login and have all rights on
/usr/local/texlive

which is probably way better than in some "own" directory. Definitely
one need to install in texmf-local packages which are required but are
not part of TL due to various reasons (licensing) and some really
local files.

Unfortunately many my esteemed colleagues do not want to switch from
tetex-3 and I am really puzzled why it works despite corresponding
texmf-local looks like city-dump :-)

Sure some users may install few files in ~/texmf/

Victor

>
> The best way to prevent users from installing TL in $HOME is to
> provide TL yourself and maintain it properly.  Why should a user want
> to install it himself, then?
>
> Regards,
>  Reinhard
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
> Marschnerstr. 25
> D-30167 Hannover                              mailto:reinhard.kotucha at web.de
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>



-- 
========================
Victor Ivrii, Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto
http://www.math.toronto.edu/ivrii