[tex-live] --help argument broken in install-tl script when resuming failed installation

[Karl-Philipp Richter]

Hi Karl,
thanks for you feedback and you explanation. I updated and linked some
stuff in tex.so. My intention was not so much to deal with unreliable
networks, but with saving data volume and time. Anyway, the concept of
install-tl is clear now.

Bests,
Karl

Am 16.05.2014 20:34, schrieb Karl Berry:
> Hi again Karl,
> 
>     I was wondering "How to preserve files downloaded by install-tl" on
>     http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/175380/how-to-preserve-files-downloaded-by-install-tl.
> 
> Several things.  To answer the original question, install-tl does not
> have a concept of its state.  So if the download fails somewhere in the
> middle, I don't think there is any good way to avoid downloading the
> same stuff again.  The successfully downloaded files are kept in the
> temp/ subdir of the installation root directory (that you specified)
> while the install is going on, but they don't help.
> 
> --in-place is not helpful as far as I can see (I tried it).  That's
> intended to be used after you have a working installation, like the svn
> checkout of the repository.  
> 
> We aren't going to implement a full state-of-the-world thing in
> install-tl a la apt-cache.  We already go to a lot of trouble to check
> the network connection, retry downloads.  If your network is that
> unreliable (totally understandable), then the answer is to use another
> method to get the files ...
> 
> .. such as rsync.  At the tex.sx url above, Norbert suggested
> rsnapshot, but if all you want to do is copy the distributed files, you
> could just use rsync (or wget) directly.  Example invocations at:
>   http://tug.org/texlive/acquire-mirror.html
> 
> 
> Next, regarding install-tl --help: both tlmgr and install-tl run their
> help through perldoc, because people vociferously wanted their
> highlighting.  But sometimes perldoc and/or the $PAGER that it invokes
> is broken, or the combination thereof.  We detect some such cases but we
> can't detect them all.
> 
> So, I've just implemented an override: if the envvar NOPERLDOC is set
> (to anything), then the piping through perldoc is not done and you just
> get plain text.  Unless the Perl installation is completely deficient,
> that should work.  If it is completely deficient, well, the help text is
> just the pod at the end of the source file; view it in any
> editor/pager/whatever.  (Also, it's online, linked from
> http://tug.org/texlive/doc, among other places.)
> 
> 
> Finally, your tex.sx url above talks about the tex-live mailing and not
> knowing to reference it.  As I also mentioned before, the mailing list
> archive url should suffice.  That is, "the thread starting at
> http://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2014-May/035206.html" ...
> 
> 
> And yes, to reiterate, all this is of course public info, so please
> cite/copy/link/whatever in your tex.sx question as appropriate.
> 
> Best,
> (another) Karl
> 

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