[tex-live] failed messages on updating texlive2011

George N. White III gnwiii at gmail.com
Sat Oct 29 23:57:04 CEST 2011


On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 3:18 PM, ravi <rv15cap at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi list experts!
>
>> But besides that, that looks all very normal and in order.
>>
>> Do you actually have *problems*? Please describe what are your problems!
>
>
> After receiving this reply, I did a check and confirmed that I had no
> problems. Why then did I get the “failed messages” when updating the tlmgr?
> I don't know.  Anyway, I decided to wait and do some more testing. Since
> then, I have come up with the following questions

If you installed as root first it is quite possible that some of the
user directories
were owned by root.  Check permissions in your home directory (don't forget
hidden files/directories).

> 1. I would like to know where I should place a *.sty file in the texlive
> installation. The background to this is as follows :
> I work with R, a language and environment for statistical computing. This
> includes a command for Sweave, which is a command for literate programming
> where one can combine latex, R code and its results. From R, starting with a
> raw "no web" dokument, I am able to convert it into a tex file. But I get
> stuck in the next step of converting to a pdf file. I get an error message
> that the "Sweave.sty" file is not found. I did a apt-file search and located
> this is located in the following location :
> /usr/share/R/share/texmf/tex/latex/Sweave.sty
> I have copied it into the following location :
> /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/tex/latex/
> Is this the right location? I can ask people at the R help list, but since I
> have done a texlive 2011 installation from source (instead of from the
> Ubuntu software centre), I have come here to this forum. Can you please tell
> me where you would recommend the placement of *.sty files so that the
> pdflatex processing finds them. In a couple of days, a new version of R will
> be released. This carries with it a new version of Sweave.sty file. What is
> the recommended method of dealing with *.sty files that are upgraded often?

This is not a good choice, as it will stop working when a new
version of texlive is installed.  The TL documentation mentions this
problem and suggests what to use.

See: <http://statmath.wu.ac.at/software/R/qfin/> also documents the
recommended location for Sweave.sty.

> 2. My next question is related to the first. The serious R users work with
> ess (“emacs speaks with statistics”), a kind of IDE with emacs for R.
> Auctexs seems to be used here for the Sweaving process. I don't know much
> about Auctex (having worked so far only with texworks), but I suppose that
> it needs texlive as well. If I install Auctex from the Ubuntu software
> centre, I suspect that there would be a dependancy problem because only
> texlive 2009 is supported there. Indeed, I have seen a blog where there is
> some discussion of using a package called “equivs” to make installed texlive
> 2011 version as the tex source. I tried the steps outlined there, but those
> did not work for me. I would appreciate all help in the right use of
> “equivs”, or alternatively any other method of solving this problem.

With very few caveats (enough disk, TL installed without symlinks in
/usr/bin) all versions of CTAN TL can coexists with distro texlive packages.
You can switch back and forth by adjusting the PATH variable.

There is also rstudio, from the Feb, 2011 announcement:

"RStudio is a new open-source IDE for R which we’re excited to
announce the availability of today. RStudio has interesting features
for both new and experienced R developers including code completion,
execute from source, searchable history, and support for authoring
Sweave documents. RStudio runs on all major desktop platforms
(Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, or [...]"

In general, R provides high-level packages to help create documents, so
if you use the tools you shouldn't need to do any installs to TeX Live.  If
you do want to add packages, you should put them in a local texmf tree,
by default, /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local.




In general, R provides high-level packages to help create documents, so
if you use the tools you shouldn't need to do any installs to TeX Live.  If
you do want to add packages, you should put them in a local texmf tree,
by default, /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local.

The R documentation tools have to work on a wide range of systems so
should work with standard distro packages of TL (at least until those
encounter the
5-year latex expiration problem).

> 3. I straight away went for the texlive 2011 installation. Could I get at
> least a short answer as to what I have gained with the texlive 2011 version
> as compared to the 2009 version provided by Ubuntu. If I install again with
> Ubuntu 11.10, I would like to know what my options are.

You may avoid some bugs in the distro TL2009 packages that have been
fixed in TL2011.   TL2011 was not tested with Ubuntu 11.10, so it is
possible that
you will encounter problems, but in general, new versions of TL have
been tested to ensure that widely used styles like Sweave.sty continue
to work,
and Sweave.sty avoids new features so that it works with older TeX systems.


> Thanks,
> Ravi
>



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



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