[tex-live] Upgrading from 2011 to 2012 (missing documentation)

[Hans Harhoff Andersen]

Hi Tex-live list.
(
I was recently trying to upgrade my installation of Texlive from 2011
to 2012 since tlmgr had stopped working because of the new version
(Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) . Unfortunately the instruction on your webpage
left me confused.
Specifically the only upgrade path that was documented was clearly
marked as "not recommended" so naturally I did not do this. It was
suggested I do a fresh install but it left no instructions  on how to
do that.

My first try was simply to install Texlive 2012 which gave me just
another folder /usr/local/texlive/2012 next to the 2011 version, but
which latex still refers to /usr/local/bin/latex which again is a
symlink to the 2011 version.

The solution turned out to be to do:
tlmgr path remove  (this will remove all symlink referring to the old install)
and then navigate to:
cd /usr/local/texlive/2012/bin/i386-linux/
from where you can run
tlmgr path add (to enable the new version)

That gives you another working installation that can be upgraded using
tlmgr update --all
I would suggest that this (I assume) recommended way of upgrading be
listed here:
http://tug.org/texlive/upgrade.html
so that new users wanting to upgrade will be succesful without having to guess.

On another note. It would also be very nice to have uninstall
instructions for Texlive. Correct me if I'm wrong but an
uninstallation can be done simply by:
tlmgr path remove
and
rm -r /usr/local/texlive/2011
since this should remove all references to this Texlive install?

Thanks for great software,
Hans

-- 
Hans Harhoff Andersen
PhD-student - Ion Trap Group
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Aarhus
Ny Munkegade 120, office 1525-224
8000 Aarhus - Denmark

T  +45 87155213
M +45 28990982