[tex-live] So far.....expensive failure

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2013-02-15 at 15:04:46 +0100, Denis Bitouzé wrote:

 > Le vendredi 15/02/13 à 14h40,
 > Zdenek Wagner <zdenek.wagner at gmail.com> a écrit :
 > 
 > > If I would like to save students' time, I would distribute the
 > > installed updated tree and explained them how to set PATH on the
 > > unix-like system or how to do tlmgr postaction on Windows.
 > 
 > Do you mean the /installed/ updated tree or the updated
 > (complete) /installer/. IMHO, the latter would be, though longer,
 > pedagogically better.

I'm also convinced that it's better to teach people how to use the
installer, though extracting a single zip file might be faster.  Some
people might have a second machine at home, teachers usually have one
machine at the university and another one at home, and so on.

 > And, once again, maybe this should be specified in TL documentation:
 > how to easily get an updated /installer/ to be distributed through
 > either a local network or USB sticks.

An up-to-date installer is at

  CTAN/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet/

You just have to copy the tlnet directory.  The default behavior of
the TeX Live installer is to install the files in tlnet/archive/ if
this directory is present and perform a network installation
otherwise.

This means:

  1. If you copy the tlnet directory to a local machine, then users
     have to download and extract tlnet/install-tl.zip on their
     machines and change the repository so that files are downloaded
     from your machine rather than from a CTAN mirror.

  2. If you copy the tlnet directory to a USB stick, then users
     have to move into this directory and call the installer directly.
     Since the tlnet/archive directory is present, the installer will
     extract the files therein and no attempt is made to install
     anything via the network.

This works on all systems, though Mac users might prefer MacTeX.
I don't know much about MacTeX, but if it can be installed from a DVD
I suppose that it can be installed from a USB stick as well, at least
if the directory layout is the same as on the DVD.  

 > (I specified a /complete/ installer because I personally prefer the
 > students to run "install-tl-advanced" than "install-tl", as they
 > are default options I wouldn't recommend to beginners.)

Which options do you have in mind?

Regards,
  Reinhard

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