[tex-live] Why is "create symlinks in standard directories" option hidden?

[Denis Bitouzé]

Le dimanche 19/05/13 à 16h28,
Zdenek Wagner <zdenek.wagner at gmail.com> a écrit :

> There are two drawbacks:
> 1. Linux often installs its own TeX even if it is not asked to do ti.
> If you make symlinks both TeX distributions are badly mixed and
> produce wierd errors.

I never encountered this problem: since years, both my Linux TeX
distribution and my vanilla TL coexist without any trouble.

> 2. You cannot have several TL versions installed in parallel. If an
> important document compiled in an old version but does not compile in
> the current version and you have no time to search the source of the
> compatibility problem, there is no way back.

OK: I experienced this just today while I was tested TL 2013 pretest.

Currently, tlmgr isn't explicit as it just says (with debugging output
enabled):

1. For updating symbolic links:

Updating symlinks ...
Executing action path add
D:linking files from /usr/local/texlive/2012/bin/i386-linux
to /usr/local/bin D:not linking man into /usr/local/bin.
D:linking files from /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/info
to /usr/local/info D:add symlinks for man pages in /usr/local/man
D:linking files from /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/man/man1
to /usr/local/man/man1 D:linking files
from /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/man/man5 to /usr/local/man/man5

2. For removing symbolic links:

Removing symlinks ...
Executing action path remove
D:removing links from /usr/local/texlive/2012/bin/i386-linux
to /usr/local/bin D:not considering man in /usr/local/bin, it should
not be from us! D:removing links
from /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/info to /usr/local/info D:remove
symlinks for man pages in /usr/local/man D:removing links
from /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/man/man1 to /usr/local/man/man1
D:removing links from /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf/doc/man/man5
to /usr/local/man/man5

But, if it would specify the Unix commands run to achieve this, one
could easily run them manually.
-- 
Denis